To John Hall Wheelock
C/o Brown Shipley & Co
123, Pall Mall, London, S.W.1
Cortina, Italy. July 1, 1935
It is inevitable that there should be different circumstances in business in different countries, and even a different spirit, and I wish to leave the matter of royalties, in the case of The Last Puritan as in that of all my other books, entirely to your judgement. I note that you think it might be possible to increase the royalty to 15% after the sale of 7,500 copies, if it should ever come to that, which I don’t expect. Meantime the important point is that you should feel able to offer the book at $2.50, which seems a very moderate price nowadays for so long a work, and I hope that this price, and the appearance of being a novel, will lead a good many people to buy and to read it, who haven’t meddled yet with my philosophy. They will get the pill here gilded by cheapness and some jokes. . . . .
I also note with pleasure that you suggest publishing Obiter Scripta in the autumn of 1936. That is not a long delay, and little more than would be needed to put the book through the press. I think Mr. Buchler and Mr Schwartz, as well as I, have every reason to be satisfied with that prospect. You may make your arrangements entirely with them, as I have done all that concerns me in the matter.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Five, 1933-1936. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries, Princeton NJ