Young and Old

Letters

Vol. 3 No. 20 · 5 November 1981

From Diana Athill

SIR: John Sutherland is wrong in his account of the publication of Molly Keane’s Good Behaviour (LRB, Vol.3, No 19), of which he says: ‘It was published in propria persona and became a bestseller in America and Ireland. In early autumn the novel was published in Britain.’ We signed the contract for this novel in April 1980. Alfred Knopf bought it in September 1980. To keep the price down, we collaborated to the extent that there was one printing, done in the United States, for both publishers. Knopf’s publication date was earlier than ours because our books had to be shipped and there were delays in the shipping. Although the book received excellent notices in the USA, it did not, alas, become a best-seller there. Knopf has not yet had to reprint, as we have just done (using, this time, a British printer). In Ireland the book was non-existent until we published it on 3 September, giving a launching party in Dublin. If Mr Sutherland did indeed hope that Good Behaviour would ‘win its prize’ it was perverse of him to invent ‘facts’ for it to ‘have to combat’.

Diana Athill
André Deutsch, London WC1

John Sutherland writes: I am grateful for Miss Athill’s corrections. Good Behaviour was physically produced in the US. It was published, and thoroughly reviewed, in America several weeks before it was available to British readers, having been published slightly earlier in Ireland. All of which would surely make us the third port of call in the successful passage of Molly Keane’s novel. That it had, in fact, achieved prior success was insisted on by publicity material accompanying review copies.