BRITISH PSYCHO‑ANALYTICAL SOCIETY

                               27 January 1927  London W1

Dear Professor,

I hasten to answer your question about the translation arrangements, though I cannot help regretting that you did not ask it before the fatal deed was done.  I would ask you to cast your mind back to the rather similar situation in regard to the “Vorlesungen” and to the agitated cabling through which some of the situation was then salvaged.  Today, however, it can no longer be remedied in any such way.

The facts, as I explained them then, are indeed quite simple.  A translation in England gives no rights in America, though one in America can and usually is registered in England also.  No publisher in England, therefore, would consider issuing a translation unless he was assured that one was not to appear in America.  The only exceptions are if (a) the sale would be likely to be large in England and (b) there was some arrangement to prevent the American one entering into England.  Both these conditions could be fulfilled in the case of the "Vorlesungen", but not in the case of any other book.  Your private influence with your nephew was enough to gain his consent to any exporting into England being stopped, whereas we know nothing of the publishers who are acting for Clark.  The "Vorlesungen" made a very popular book,^[1] and the time was at the height of the temporary boom in psycho‑analysis.  The "Hemmung" book^[2] has, of course, no popular appeal, and in any case the boom is long since past.  The net result of all this is that no publisher in England would consider issuing a translation of the "Hemmung, etc." unless he were very heavily subsidised (perhaps several hundred pounds).  Even the Abraham book,^[3] which should have a considerable sale in both England and America cannot be published until we personally add another fifty pounds to the hundred pounds already donated from your Fond.

The other considerations you also know well ‑‑ to translate a book of yours satisfactorily needs a correct knowledge of English, which is a comically rare possession, together with a reasonable knowledge of both German and psycho‑analysis.  Pierce Clark's English would be distressing if it were not amusing and I do not think that the other bases of necessary knowledge are at their best.  In the course of years we have gathered in London three or four people who can do such work adequately.  They have the disadvantage of being slow workers and not well blessed financially, but they have two other features, those of being scrupulous and capable, which seem to me to outweigh the disadvantages.  At all events, no sign of an adequate translation has yet appeared anywhere except in their hands.

I had hoped, particularly after giving the "«MDUL»Collected Papers«MDNM»" such an established position in our "Library" series, that things were at last on a sound basis as regard this most important question of translation.  The enterprise of our official "Library" series and "«MDUL»International Journal«MDNM»" has survived many storms and difficulties, including even Rank, and has always tried to produce the best quality work.  Pierce Clark, refusing to support either us or the Association starts a separatist tendency of a purely individual nature.  In this you have unwittingly supported him at our cost.  Mrs. Riviere's comment, when I told her the news on the telephone, was "And this is how we are treated after years of work!"

If I have left anything still unexplained in the situation you have only to ask me.

Yours always sincerely,  Ernest Jones

^[1]           ×Freud (1916‑17).

^[2]           Freud (1926d).

^[3]           Abraham (1927).