Origins of Selection from the Prision Notebooks?

This is C27 in Sraffas archives.

97 Fortis Green
London N2
Tudor 0214

6th August 1966

Dear Piero,

I do not know whether you know Roger Simon, who is Secretary of the Labour Research Department. At all events he is a great admirer and enthusiast of Gramsci. Thanks to his initiative, plans are afoot (in which I too am collaborating) to publish a new volume of Gramsci's works translated into English and Lawrence & Wishart have agreed, in principle, to undertake publication.

We would very much welcome views and suggestions from you on how this should be done. The general idea at present is a bigger book than the L & W. 1957 translation (which is now out of print), including, if appropriate, passages already translated on that occasion. One line of thought that we are pursuing is that the volume should comprise mainly longer writings from the Notebooks and should be so presented that, if successful, it could be followed by further volumes, with the possible aim of ultimately translating all Gramsci's works. It would be good if the publication of this volume could sow the seeds of a growing interest in and knowledge of this outstanding political thinker, and so it is probably worth giving quite a bit of thought as to how this first step in that direction should be taken.

One problem is the choice of a translator; the ideal might be a young don specialising in twentieth century Italy and an admirer of Gramsci who would be keen to make a scholarly study of him, his times and his work. Do you know any such person?

Also do you by any chance know, or know anything of, Gwyn A. Williams who wrote a very interesting and scholarly article on Gramsci in the Journal of the History of Ideas, 1960, and who was at that time at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth?

Are there other Gramsci scholars known to you?

I hope that we may have a chance of meeting some time in the Autumn.

With best wishes

Yours,

Stephen Bodington

Piero Sraffa Esq., M. A.,
Trinity College,
CAMBRIDGE.

Reference

• Antonio Gramsci (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks (Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith ed. and trans.), London: Lawrence & Wishart