MORE FOOTNOTE TROUBLE
Paul Anderson writes:
I'm cracking on and it's all going fine but there are a couple more problems:
1. The journalistic career of John Langdon-Davies. I'm sorted on his dispute with Orwell on the May Days in Barcelona 1938 (Langdon-Davies reported the fighting as a failed Trotskyist coup in the News Chronicle, Orwell had a go at him in Homage to Catalonia) but I am a bit vague on what happened next.
I have Langdon-Davies's book on the Finnish resistance to the 1939-40 Soviet invasion, which seems to me (65 years on, very little other reading on the Winter War) pretty good. But for which paper did he go to Finland in 1939-40? What did the left say about his reportage? And what did he do next? Colindale beckons, but if anyone can help me out ...
2. The Red Duchess. The Duchess of Atholl, a Tory MP, put together a rather good book in 1932 exposing forced labour in Soviet Russia. By the mid-1930s she was a communist fellow-traveller, singing the praises of the Spanish republic and resigning her seat to fight a by-election against appeasement -- which she lost. But in the mid-1940s she was the founder of the anti-communist League for European Freeedom, to which Orwell refused to subscribe. Is there a decent biography out there?
Paul Anderson writes:
I'm cracking on and it's all going fine but there are a couple more problems:
1. The journalistic career of John Langdon-Davies. I'm sorted on his dispute with Orwell on the May Days in Barcelona 1938 (Langdon-Davies reported the fighting as a failed Trotskyist coup in the News Chronicle, Orwell had a go at him in Homage to Catalonia) but I am a bit vague on what happened next.
I have Langdon-Davies's book on the Finnish resistance to the 1939-40 Soviet invasion, which seems to me (65 years on, very little other reading on the Winter War) pretty good. But for which paper did he go to Finland in 1939-40? What did the left say about his reportage? And what did he do next? Colindale beckons, but if anyone can help me out ...
2. The Red Duchess. The Duchess of Atholl, a Tory MP, put together a rather good book in 1932 exposing forced labour in Soviet Russia. By the mid-1930s she was a communist fellow-traveller, singing the praises of the Spanish republic and resigning her seat to fight a by-election against appeasement -- which she lost. But in the mid-1940s she was the founder of the anti-communist League for European Freeedom, to which Orwell refused to subscribe. Is there a decent biography out there?
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Posted at 12:56 AM
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A BL search turns up:
Katharine Atholl, 1874-1960: Against the Tide.
Hetherington, Sheila, Aberdeen University Press 1989.
There was also an autobiography Working Partnership published 1958.
Katharine Atholl, 1874-1960: Against the Tide.
Hetherington, Sheila, Aberdeen University Press 1989.
There was also an autobiography Working Partnership published 1958.
# posted by 
: January 04, 2006
: January 04, 2006
On JLD there is a biography by Miquel Berga but it is in Catalan (which is a pity as having looked up JDL's publications list he seems rather interesting).
Berga delivered a lecture on Orwell in 2002 which seems to have generated several responses (in English) defending JLD's position - see:
http://a9.com/Joan%20Gili%20Memorial%20Lecture%202002
Berga is obviously the guy to talk to and there are contact details at:
http://www.upf.edu/huma/professors/berga.htm
However no idea if these are up-to-date.
Berga delivered a lecture on Orwell in 2002 which seems to have generated several responses (in English) defending JLD's position - see:
http://a9.com/Joan%20Gili%20Memorial%20Lecture%202002
Berga is obviously the guy to talk to and there are contact details at:
http://www.upf.edu/huma/professors/berga.htm
However no idea if these are up-to-date.
# posted by : January 04, 2006
: January 04, 2006
Many thanks for these. I'd found Berga's lecture and the responses and noted the existence of the biography in Catalan -- but not got contact details. And the Atholl biog had passed me by.
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