Item 53 - Letter from Q. D. Leavis to James Smith

1 folded sheet

16 Newton Road, Cambridge.—When she wrote to Arthur Mizener to thank him for trying to help Kate [her daughter] get a post-graduate year at Cornell, she suggested that he might make an offer for Smith’s set of Scrutiny for the university. Cornell have now obtained one, at a high price, but Mizener suggests that other American universities will want a set. Suggests various means of advertising the set, without going through D[eighton] Bell, who would probably charge commission. Kingsford advises that the Syndics of the CUP have agreed to reprint Scrutiny complete. ‘I never thought we should live to see ourselves respectable, did you? but now it looks as though we shall all die in the odour of sanctity (from the Eng. Lit. Establishment point of view). Of course H. S. Bennett is retired from being a Syndic now; I daresay when the news percolates through the university there will be several deaths from violent emotion. Tillyard is said to be v. tottery & gaga anyway.’ Mizener found one other complete set of Scrutiny in the possession of the Treasurer of Lloyds Bank, but discovered that even an offer to buy it would be taken as an insult. Reminds Smith to send the essay he was going to let Frank [her husband] forward to Sewanee Review. Is busy house-hunting, as Frank retires in a year. ‘How handy the Nobel Prize money would come—I often think that the Nobel Prize for Literature has many times been awarded for far less services to literature than Frank’s.’ Refers to Frank’s letter [1/51], and urges Smith to collect and publish his essays.