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Correspondence from Fernando Pessoa to The Mandrake Press
Apartado 147, Lisbon
13th. October, 1930.
Mandrake Press Limited, 41, Museum Street, London, W.C.1.
Dear Sirs:
I am much obliged for your letter of the 7th. Inst. You will have received already mine of the same date and the copy of the Notícias Ilustrado which I sent you then. If you want further copies of this paper, please tell me how many and I shall be pleased to send them, unless (which is not impossible) the issue may be wholly sold.
I am enclosing the translation I promised you of the report in Notícias Ilustrado. I could not complete this before to-day, for, as you will see, the report is very long, and I have very little time left over from other matters. The translation is made straight off and is meant rather to give a literal notion of the original text than to conform to any literary standard.
There is nothing to be added to what I have already written you, and the article now translated will further elucidate, as to Mr. Crowley's disappearance. The investigation of the case, which had lain with the Criminal Investigation Police, has been passed over by them to the Portuguese International Police. This, I confess, is rather queer, and I do not know the reason.
I am somewhat at a loss to understand the particular nature of your reference to the Shares. The reference in your first letter seemed a casual one; but, in the letter I am now replying to, the matter is alluded to as if either I had been mentioned to you as a probable investor or I had myself given some idea to that effect. I would have no objection at all to the investment if I were in a position to make it; I would gladly take up the Shares you mention, or even more, if I were in a position to take up any shares at all. But really I am not, have never pretended to be and cannot understand whence that seems to be a misunderstanding has arisen.
I have no urgency in publishing, or republishing, my English Poems. There would be no point in simply reprinting the two long poems, and the one I intended to add on them, to form a triad, is not completed.
This is a matter which can stand over for an indefinite time.
Should there be any developments worth mentioning in the matter of Mr. Crowley's disappearance, I shall at once communicate them to you.
Meantime, and with compliments, I remain
Yours faithfully,
Fernando Pessoa
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