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[[MS 2750/255/60]]

Norman Leys Esq 
Brailsford 
Near Derby

7 March, 1925

Dear Leys.

We have sold 701 copies up to date. That means we have less than 150 of the first edition. We sold 28 last week, so that, unless a miracle happens, we are certain in a week or two to get below the 100. If you have definitely decided to print a second edition when that happens, I think you ought to reprint it at once. There are often unforeseen delays in printing, and it is silly to risk having a lacuna between the two editions. I still think you are unwise to reprint if you ever contemplate a cheap edition. I also think you would be well advised not to print more than 500 or at most 750, if you do reprint; if you print 500, you will have to go on selling at the present rate for nearly six months more in order sell out, and the sales are bound to decrease in a month or two. I hope you don’t mind my going on at you about this, but I don’t want you to lose. Then about the cost, if you print the 750 or 900, you must sell [redacted text] over 400 to repay yourself if it is 750, and nearly 500 if it is 900.

Let me know your final decision, but if you decide to reprint at once send me what you want put into the preface. Your present preface has space for only 8 additional lines. If you could possibly alter it for the second edition so that it would not run over on to a third page, you would greatly lessen the additional cost that this will run you into. If it runs over on to a third page, it will be very awkward, as the first shoot will be altered and all the paging, and it might be very expensive, unless the printer ran Murray’s introduction on to page 14, leaving your Chapter I beginning on page 15. Of course, this could be done.

Yours sincerely | Leonard Woolf [signature]