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[[MS 2750/487/1/]]
The Cottage
Boary ’s Hill
Oxford
The Hogarth Press
London
20.6.[19]25
Gentlemen,
I wonder if you are willing to look through the enclosed ms., The Other Side of the Mirror?edal, with a view to its possible publication in a revised & considerably changed form?
It has been offered to no publisher. Its marks of travel are due to its having been read by Mr. Lionel Curtis, Mr. Robert Graves, Professor Gilbert Murray, Mr. Siegfried Sassoon, Mr. E. M. Forster. I wrote it last year, in anger and indignation at The Lost Dominion. Then I saw that publication would mean a row. Officially, I am an Orientalist, being Lecturer in Bengali to the University of Oxford; publication could do me no good, and might mean resignation, since the Indian Government pays most of the expenses of the Oriental Faculty. But what made me refrain from seeking a publisher was my feeling that the book would get into the wrong hands, & be read by Indian extremists while ignored by my own people.
Mr. Lionel Curtis said it should be published, but as part of a much bigger Empire study which he is preparing, in which it would be less inflammable. Professor Murray said it should be published, but with more conciliatory matter added. Sassoon, Graves, & Forster think it should be published in any case. I cannot make up my mind. I think it very doubtful that I should get a publisher, unless the Labour Party published it, when it would come out as propaganda. In any case, I should add modifying & explanatory matter, such as would (I hope) make it less vexing to people brought up on orthodox views of the Mutiny - which would make its 33,000 words nearer 40,000.
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Since you do not confine yourselves to belles-lettres, will you take a look at it? I am quite prepared to hear that you find it harmful, or unfair, or not in your line. But I have been out of England so long that I am quite incapable of judging how such a thing affects the English reader - I should be very tempted to defer to anyone else's judgement. The fact that five people known to me and of reputation in the world of letters think it should be made known has influenced my opinion a good deal.
I have written other books; but need not bother you with them now. I am English editor for Messrs. Ernest Benn, who have just sent various things to press for me and who published two of my plays last year in their Contemporary British Dramatists.
Yours sincerely | Edward J. Thompson [signature]
[*In the Ms., pp. 17 [illeg. characters] are omitted, as bad journalism & irrelevant.*]