A Communication to My Friends

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A Communication to My Friends (1933) was published posthumously under the direction of George Moore’s attorney and executor. who contributed an introduction.

Note by the Literary Executor

When arrangements were made for the completion of the uniform edition of his works, George Moore proposed to write a general introduction to be published with “A Mummer’s Wife” which he had designated as volume I. As the writing of this introduction progressed the work grew under his hand, his interest and his enthusiasm increased as he told the story of his journey to London with the manuscript of his first novel, his meetings with publishers, his struggle with the libraries and his final success, so that he foresaw a separate publication, under the title of “A Communication to my Friends,” of what he had at first only intended as an introduction to the uniform edition. He continued to work with astonishing energy and concentration at the “Communication” until within a few days of his death on the 21st January, 1933, but he had by then written only one half of what he had in mind and a third of that had not been revised. Unfinished though it is, his friends will wish to have, not merely the very last thing which George Moore wrote, but something so characteristic as the easy and familiar talk of this “Communication.” The part which remains unrevised is included with the rest. George Moore, as was his wont, would have revised and polished the whole, but perhaps the very lack of that revision gives a more personal touch to his last writing.

Audiero numquam tua facta loquentem.

C.D. Medley