|
|
From R. Percy Hodder-Williams 13th June 1939
Miss Bip Pares
20, Frognal Lane,
Hampstead
N.W. 3Dear Miss Pares,
I am going to set you a very difficult task. You have got to beat your
wrapper for SEA WAY ONLY. ;
Here is the new Humfrey Jordan novel. It is entitled ANCHOR COMES
BACK. The scene is the Burmese coast, but the theme, of course, is once
a sailor, always a sailor.
I suggest to you that a companion wrapper to SEA WAY ONLY might be made
by reversing the colours, and instead of having a blue sleeve on a white
ground, we might have a white peninsular on a blue ground, with a white
liner on a blue sea approaching the coast.
. The peninsular is the Thaung-lon Peninsular and the heat is terrific,
but we don't want Burmese stuff, we want a great bold, simple wrapper
like SEA WAY ONLY, the blue suggesting the sea, the white suggesting the
intense sunlight, and the approaching ship the title of the novel:
ANCHOR, COMES BACK. |
From R. Percy Hodder-Williams 30th July 1940
Dear Miss Pares,
. I don't know whether you-have got the time - for we want it very
quickly -"but I think you must illustrate the new Humfrey Jordan as your
wrapper for SEA WAY ONLY is still the unbeatable Jordan wrapper.
Something equally bold and
simple will do very well for TIDE STILL FLOWING, proofs of which I am
sending you to-day.
If you would like to let me have in addition five line drawings for the
half-titles facing the five books, well and good, but we must not hold
up production for these line drawings. It Is really a question of
whether you have time to do them. They need not, necessarily have
figures, indeed, they would look better, I think, as bold decorative
work, for this is very much a man's book, pretty strong meat, I think,
and fine stuff.
P.S. How are you setting on with the wrapper of PRAY SILENCE? We want
to publish this as soon as possible.
|
From Humfrey Jordan 8th August 1940
Dear Mr, Hodder-Williams
Thank you for your two letters, dated 6th, and 7th, both received this
morning about TIDE STILL FLOWING
If Miss Pares will give me an idea as to the illustrations she has in
mind I will do my best to supply her at once with some data? although I
fear that I have not any photographs which will help her.
I will make alterations in the proofs along the lines you suggest in
your other letter. I certainly do not want to offend anyone needlessly
in these hard times.
I had Just finished the proofs but will make the alterations necessary
and forward the result, I hope, to-morrow.
When you can, let me have your opinion of the new novel. It was hard to
write in war, but the result seems more or less what I intended.
Although I am much occupied with being a soldier of sorts again, I am
going on writing. Or that is ay firm intention.
Yours Sincerely,
|
From D.E. Fisher? 9th August 1940
Dear Miss Pares,
We have received the accompanying letter from Mr. Humfrey Jordan, but
Mr. Hodder-Williams is very concerned about the time problem in
connection with this book.
He suggests that you might have a word with Mr. Jordan on the
telephone-, but, as I mentioned on the telephone yesterday, he does want
to impress upon you that we cannot wait for these pictures and wrapper.
I am sure you will respond to the urgency of this job.
Yours sincerely,
|
Accompanying letter from the author
ANCHOR COMES BACK
Notes on Sketches.
1. I like the idea for the wrapper and a map end-paper very much indeed
2. The Magaung River flowed out to the east not the west of the Thaung~lon peninsular see page 108 of text. So, I have
made a rough
sketch-map which embodies my picture of the place, which I hope may be
of some help to Bip Pares.
3. The Burma Princess was a small modern motor-ship -
page 160. She had one funnel, one mast and the very prominent
samson-posts'4 which seem an invariable feature of that modernity. The
Orient Line Orion or Orcades reduced down to a small ship
give the idea
4. The Thaung-lon Peninsular is Slant Evergreen Forest,
actually no teak grows in these forests. The trees for the most part
grow to great heights, running up straight to eighty or a hundred feet
before they branch, coaling out of the ground in enormous flanged boles.
On the ground there is a tangle of bushes and undergrowth; between
undergrowth and tree-tops creepers fantastically festooned. Indeed they
are very fantastic forests. The country is very steep and rough,
generally a series of narrow, precipitous valleys or gorges running at
right angles from the central spine of hill. On account of the heat and
the damp vegetation is wildly luxuriant. Orchids and ferns love the
place; forest cover everything; yet undergrowth is so exuberant that a
decently equipped party having to cut a new path would do very well if
they progressed a mile in a day. She moat fantastic tropical Jungle but
with giant trees dominating.
I am sorry that I have no photographs to help and I am sure that Bip
Pares will be lucky if he gets any real "meat" out of this note.
|
All
page content © Classic Crime Fiction
|
|
