George Orwell Typed Letter Signed.

ORWELL, George.

$25,000.00

Item Number: 133445

Rare typed letter signed by the acclaimed author of Nineteen-Eighty Four, George Orwell; part of a long correspondence with scientist Edward R. Ward regarding his views on science. One page, typescript, the letter reads: ‘9th January 1946 Dear Mr. Ward, Your letter has been passed on to be by “Tribune”. I am sorry that in their correspondence columns I should have answered what was really an abridgement of your original letter; but I had not seen the latter, and I did not know that what was printed was a shortened version. I cannot enter into what might become a prolonged controversy, but I must stick to two of my original points: (a) that many scientists, including some of those you name, appear to adopt an extremely unscientific attitude towards problems in which their emotions and loyalties are involved; and (b) that members of the general public, such as myself, have a right to form and express their own opinions on the relationship between science and society. I do not know in what way your original letter was mutilated, but you did state quite clearly that I, as a journalist, had no right to express an opinion on matters that were the sole concern of scientists. It was this remark in your letter that led me to reply. The theologians make exactly similar claims – for example, that a member of the lay public has no right to air his opinions on such questions as the existence of God – and the one claim seems to me to be about as well founded as the other. Yours truly, “Geo. Orwell” George Orwell.’ With Orwell’s 27B Canonbury Square Islington London return address. From the late 19th century to the turn of the 20th century, English scientist Eduard R. Ward was a semi-professional microscopist and well-known figure in the Manchester scientific society. He was one of the founders of the Manchester Microscopical Society and remains best known for his photographic documentation of the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal. (Science-Gossip, 1901). First published in the Tribune on October 26, 1945, Orwell’s “What is Science” elaborated on the ideas summarized in his reply to Ward, essentially warning of the danger of leaving scientific pursuits to scientists in laboratories and making it inaccessible to the general public. Ward responded to Orwell’s “What is Science” in the Tribune in October 1945, but the Tribune printed only an abridged version of his letter. Orwell responded to him in print again in November, but had done so without the full text of Ward’s original letter. This January 9, 1946, letter is his private response to the letter in full. In near fine condition. Double matted and framed with a photograph of Orwell. The entire piece measures 19 inches by 16.25 inches.

In his concise article, "What is Science" Orwell concludes, "A hundred years ago, Charles Kingsley described science as ‘making nasty smell in a laboratory’. A year or two ago a young industrial chemist informed me, smugly, that he ‘could not see what was the use of poetry’. So the pendulum swings to and fro, but it does not seem to me that one attitude is any better than the other. At the moment, science is on the upgrade, and so we hear, quite rightly, the claim that the masses should be scientifically educated: we do not hear, as we ought, the counter-claim that the scientists themselves would benefit by a little education. Just before writing this, I saw in an American magazine the statement that a number of British and American physicists refused from the start to do research on the atomic bomb, well knowing what use would be made of it. Here you have a group of same men in the middle of a world of lunatics. And though no names were published, I think it would be a safe guess that all of them were people with some kind of general cultural background, some acquaintance with history or literature or the arts — in short, people whose interests were not, in the current sense of the word, purely scientific."