Doom of Youth. [2 copies].

Bookseller Notes

A notorious book, this principally resting on the libel action to which these copies directly relate. The book was withdrawn following demands by the solicitors of Alec Waugh and Godfrey Winn, who come under sustained attack beginning in Part II, Chapter 6. Though Lewis was not found to be libellous, the book was withdrawn by the publisher and unsold copies were pulped (increasing its scarcity), and the fall-out from this episode meant that Lewis - livid at their compliance - did not again publish with Chatto & Windus.The copy of the book used as evidence on Waugh's side encloses two autograph letters from him to his solicitor following the case (June and July the following year), the first thanking him for the cheque and the outcome - remarking of 'the way the action has been handled' that 'I don't see how it could have ended more satisfactorily' and praising him and his brother (Ronald, Harold and Stanley Rubinstein were all partners in the family firm of Rubenstein, Nash & Co) - and in the second congratulating him on the birth of a child, joking that his delight at the event perhaps displays 'what Lewis would call my thwarted maternal impulses in full spate'. The dispute had an enduring legacy in respect of both Lewis's attitude towards publishers and his own reputation: Harold Rubinstein, advising Victor Gollancz five years later, with regard to a character based on Lewis in Edith Sitwell's 'I Live Under a Black Sun', declared that 'Wyndham Lewis is a dangerous person. I speak from experience. I suggest, therefore, that no loophole be allowed him to make trouble'.Lewis's principal objection to the content of the case was the suggestion that he had labelled Waugh a homosexual, and his notes on p. 206 refer to the definition there and queries whether he has, in the passages on Waugh, done anything 'remotely to suggest' that he conforms.