T. E. Lawrence to G. J. Greenwood

Plymouth

17.VII.31

Dear Greenwood

I think Hanley a very good, if not always gay, writer. Boy is very remarkable, in the draft I read. I have not seen your revised text. He is profuse, various, and vigorous.

I hope you are not riding for a row with the Home Office. That sort of thing usually gives the author a kink against decency, and makes him bought by all the wrong people, for all the nasty reasons. Hanley is too good to be labelled by them. Of the evils, I far prefer censorship by the publisher to censorship by the police. If you publish anything a fellow writes, you only give the police an easy entry. So do outrage your love of liberty so far as to keep Hanley out of the Courts.

Of the two sentences you quote, nothing (on the score of fairness) can be said against the first.

The second is not so fair. I told him that nobody but a sane and decent person could write so freely about - well, filth. As you put it, people in search of a sane and wholesome book for their sons and daughters might blindly buy Boy - and be indignant. Can't you even it out? [4 lines omitted]

Good luck to you!

Yours

T.E. Shaw