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Correspondence from Elliot S. Darby to Michael Sadleir [Constable & Co., Publishers of Laughing Torso]
[Correspondence concerning Constable & Co.'s preparation for the libel suit brought by Aleister Crowley against Nina Hamnett and the publication of her book Laughing Torso.]
Michael Sadleir Esq: 10, Orange Street. W.1.
15th October 1932
Dear Mr. Sadleir,
Many thanks for your letter of the 14th.
I quite appreciate your decision to make no move in the circumstances, but I am quite in the dark as to what the circumstances are, beyond what I have seen in the papers. I was very pleased to see you decided to fight, and that you won your case, and can only assume there is another action pending. If so, my knowledge, time and services are at the disposal of your legal advisers, for what such items are worth. No doubt, you have been wondering what my interest in the matter is; I have been wondering that myself.
You may put me down as a poor devil of a writer, scratching for a living in the sub-soil of Literature, or trotting up and down and fascines of Fleet Street, like a terrier at a hedge, looking for an opening, though I think the real explanation of my interest lies in the fact that a direct ancestor of mine was the founder of a religious sect, in the tenets of which your adversary was trained, and upon which he has since poured his foulest abuse.
By the way—your legal advisers may be interested to read, in the London Mercury, of a precedent, which "se non e vero, e ben trovato".
In last month's issue appeared a story, by Mr. J. C. Squire, bearing on this subject, and in the current issue is a letter from a correspondent describing how a solicitor dealt successfully with a similar case.
With best wishes for a happy issue.
Yours sincerely,
Elliot S. Darby
Michael Sadleir Esq: 10, Orange Street. W.1.
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