He was irresistible. I stuck to my guns over the fifth essay, but weakly agreed to have reset - at OUP expense - the four he had so outrageously revised.
The fifth essay was not, however, banished from the book for all time. In his next letter Stallworthy wrote: 'We are agreed that when a new edition is called for we will add "From Hope and Fear Set Free".' The Stallworthy Treaty of 1968 is being honoured in 2002.
Berlin, by his own admission, over-corrected the proofs of the Introduction 'as usual'. He asked Stuart Hampshire to write a footnote answering the criticisms of his views.[4] He observes to Stallworthy that E. H. Carr would be happy to do the same, 'my God! if let. But the whole piece must not consist of attributions of views (mainly my own) furiously disowned by their putative holders.' Stallworthy replies, having suggested a reduction of the corrections: 'I think it is no exaggeration to say that the present corrections would require the resetting of nearly half the Introduction.' (In the end the whole of it was reset.) In his reply to Stallworthy's pleas, Berlin says that he has endeavoured to make changes that occupy the same space as what they replace. He adds: 'So now we can go - I should like to say full steam ahead, except that I feel that I have held the engine up so long, I cannot complain if it seizes up or moves backwards.' A later letter, answering final queries on the proofs, concludes: 'My doctrines are attacked so ferociously in this year's B.Phil. examination in Politics that I anticipate storms, not from embattled students only, but from every possible quarter, when my unpopular doctrines are published: that or chilly silence, broken by a few mildly contemptuous dismissals in the TLS and the like. To all this I am resigned, or at least suppose myself to be.'
From now on it is more or less downhill all the way, though there is still a series of minor hitches. In September Stallworthy tells Linnet: 'Berlin continues to fight a harassing rearguard action, but we shall overcome.' The following month a memo from Linnet ventures: 'We are toying with the idea of listing this book in the next seasonal catalog.' When Berlin saw the final proofs in October, supplied only so that he could answer some questions about page references in the index, he noticed that there were still a number of errors in the text; the survival of some of these in the finished book is an additional minor justification for a new edition.
An advance copy was eventually sent to Berlin in March 1969, together with the information that the publication date would be 1 5 May. As had been intended from the start, the book was published only in paperback, as part of the Oxford Paperbacks series. This strategy, in my view (perhaps aided by hindsight), was a mistake, at best a premature publishing experiment, since it played its part in ensuring the noticeably meagre review coverage the book received: the established custom of literary editors, visible even to this day, was to take hardbacks more seriously than original paperbacks.1 The book may have improved the profile of Oxford Paperbacks, but its manner of publication, possibly reinforced by its somewhat self-effacing title, damaged its early fortunes.
Berlin's reaction to the advance copy includes the following:
I was naturally horrified to see my own likeness upon the cover - I
had not been warned about this and it set me back a good deal. Is this
' In New York, however, a hardback edition was published in 1970. In 1979, too, when I was myself an editor at OUP, I bound up part of a reprint of the Oxford Paperback in hard covers in an attempted rearguard action, but because of the low-quality paper used for the series at that time this was an unsatisfactory hybrid. Only now is the book being given the kind of physical incarnation it has always deserved.
\
1WSK
■ HLZT^p
ШШШШШШШШВШШ
' ' ' ■: Л
iiBiSI
w Щ ЯГ ЩШ ЩШ ЩВ щШШ
1Ш1Ш1111 waw
НКиИ
Ч'-ЖЖ Ж''"'-::';'
щ^нпн янннрнияи
Яв ■ j
I ■ J
дЦИмдИ
,■::■■■ .-с,.,.. s
1 < Ш fj Щ '
ypf 1
, ,,
; ■
.
■НННИнш. #
■
Нк #ЧИ|
ш ди
,
. •' .
гл
В .
S :
ёыыямяк
ИНИН
ШШт
ЙИ 1 ''
УЛЛМгЛ Шя ■йЦншШш
ТШВШВШ
щЯВШЯгяЯЯЩВЯЯ^ЯЩШ
'ШШШЙшк
Wk>
^ШРШЯИИ
■■■ИМ
ц^нНк, ^шшшШШШИШШШ
Ж
• ' • ' ..■■■■■■ ' -v.,'., ■.■■.. ....
^ V • ^ ^ ■;. ■.-.'.•■-у
... . ,. : . : ..... ..'.
... . ' .. ... ' ■
ЩВрШрв
The front cover of the first UK impression of Essays on Liberty (1969)
absolutely indispensable? However, it is done and I must not cry over what seems to me a slight lapse in taste (do you not agree? secretly). As for the rest, the book looks very nicely done. Now I expect terrible brickbats, though it seems to me about the worst moment for preaching the sentiments for which I do not feel ashamed and which I do not wish to withdraw, but which are regarded by young and old as singularly 'irrelevant' to their preoccupations. However, never mind, perhaps posterity will be kinder or perhaps there will be no posterity to have to be kind. Perhaps it will all be justifiably forgotten - book, author, reactions and all.
He also provided lists of people, nearly 200 in all, to whom he wished copies to be sent at his expense, commenting: 'I expect these are about the only persons who will in fact wish to buy the book - however, never mind.'
Stallworthy replies: 'I was sorry to learn that you are now not happy with the cover. You will remember, I am sure, that Carol Buckroyd called at your house one Sunday morning with a proof. You did not then like the yellow lettering and chose from the books on your shelves a light blue to replace it.' And in its light blue livery, bound with rapidly crumbling glue, the book now finally entered the public domain.