Futility Closet - Shortly after his travel book Alexandria appeared in December 1922, E.M. Forster received a regretful letter from the publisher, Whitehead Morris & Co. There had been a fire in the warehouse and the entire edition had been burned. Fortunately, it had been insured, and they enclosed a substantial check in compensation.
“A few weeks later Forster received a yet more regretful letter from the publishers,” notes editor Lawrence Durrell in the book’s 1961 edition. “The books had been found intact, in a cellar which had escaped the flames. This, in view of the insurance money, his publishers wrote, had created a most awkward situation, and they had taken the only way out: they burnt the books deliberately.”
1 comment:
Reminds me of the English officer who was sent into the Ruhr after WWI to dismantle arms factories. Ordered to destroy cannon barrels at one site, there were none on hand. So he had the workers make a sufficient number, then destroyed them. (from The Arms of Krupp)
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