StudienVerlag - Oapen

An William Rose
Long Crendon/Bucks, 19.9.1939
Ms. m. U., IGRS London, WRO 5/Neu
Dear Rose,
is there not an unlucky star looking down on this business? The manuscript has
been delivered and accepted but I understand that it is not at all certain whether
and when and under what signet it will be published. I for one think it will not be
published at all before the end of this war.
I do hope you and your family are well and not particularly hit by the events.
As for myself, I am not allowed to move beyond five miles or use my car, and Stefan
Zweig is in the same boat. Being „enemy aliens“ we are not allowed to help in
the emergency, and the only thing left to us is digging in the garden to grow some
cabbage! […]
Offenkundig hat RN zuvor mehrmals über „the manuscript“ mit Rose gesprochen:
Zumindest die deutsche Originalfassung von „An den Wassern von Babylon“ ist in
der Tat erstmals 1945 (in Oxford) erschienen.
Von Herbert G. Wells
London, 6.10.1939
Ms. m. U., ÖNB
My dear Neumann,
Will this do?
By the Waters of Babylon combines the sweeping imaginative quality of Eugene
Sue’s Wandering Jew with the structural invention of The Bridge of San Luis Rey. It
is a vivid contribution to the perennial problem of the Jewish mentality.
Yours sincerely,
H. G. Wells
RN hatte Wells um einen Werbetext für seinen Roman gebeten. – Der vergleichende
Hinweis auf den Roman von Thornton Wilder: „The Bridge of San Luis Rey“ (1927,
ausgezeichnet mit dem Pulitzer-Preis) hat eilige Klappentext-Rezensenten zu Fehlurteilen
verführt.
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