Previous | Next
Session: 123456789101112131415161718192021 Page 243244245246247248249250251252253254255256257258259260261262263264265266267268269270271272273274275276277278279280281282283284285286287 of 1029
from his secretary, Miss Patch, saying that Mr. Shaw never allowed any of his plays to go into an anthology. She was very sorry.
Well, since I was going over to England, I persuaded Lawrence Langner, the head of the Theater Guild, to give me a letter of introduction to Shaw. I called up the day I got to London, and Shaw answered the phone personally, to my amazement. “I know you want my play,” he said. “I won't give it to you-- but if you'd like to meet me, come and have tea.” He named a day for me to come to his apartment in Whitehall, which was right on the Thames between the Savoy and Westminster Abbey. It was a famour apartment house.
Also, at that time we had just bought the rights to publish in a trade edition something that had only been sold to doctors until then; the four-volume Havelock Ellis‘Studies in the Psychology of Sex. The rights belonged to Davis & Company. I went down to Philadelphia and talked them into letting us do a trade edition for the general public.
How did you get this idea? Had you seen the book?
Oh, Havelock Ellis was talked about then the way the hippies and yippies are talked about now. He represented a breakthrough, writing about sadism and people who had made dates to get whipped by strangers and other perversions...
But even though it hadn't been a trade book--
© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help