[[1]]

[[MS 2750/2/1/17]]

[pre-printed perforated letter card] LETTER [Royal Coat of Arms] CARD [2 Postage Stamps to the total value of 4 1/2d; postmarked: Abinger Hammer, Dorking, Surrey; of the date], [only '1940' is legible]

John Lehmann 
Hogarth Press 
37 Mecklenburg Square 
W.C.1

[pre-printed on the reverse, folded section, of the card] IF USED FOR TRANSMISSION TO ANY PLACE ABROAD TO WHICH THE 1 1/2d RATE OF LETTER POSTAGE DOES NOT APPLY, THE ADDITIONAL POSTAGE REQUIRED SHOULD BE PREPAID BY MEANS OF ADHESIVE POSTAL STAMPS.

[[2]]

W. H.^*1

Wednesday

Dear John,

I am distressed to hear from Ahmed Ali that the printers are panicking over his novel, and that it can't be done.

Had he been reasonable over alterations? If he has not been, I might speak to him, but I get the impression that he has been, in which case nothing further can be done.

It is a tragedy for him anyhow, as he stayed on to see the thing through the press, and there now <may> be difficulty over exit permits and hosts. - And very tiresome for <the> press too. - We have had a similar trouble here over a letter to <the> Local Press about Refugees, but <that> has now been surmounted. -

Yours ever | E M Forster [signature]

* Endnotes

1. West Hackhurst.