On 3rd April 1990, Alan Ryan contributed an article to The Times entitled The Right to Disobey, in which he praised the recent anti-poll-tax rioters of Trafalgar Square, saying "A readiness to disobey the Government is one of the things the citizen owes his country." His article provoked a fusillade of angry letters to The Times and the following, post-trial letter to him from me. - A. M.
To: Professor Alan Ryan, Department of Politics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States of America, 4th May 1990
"Making Names"/Oxford University Press
Dear Professor Ryan,
Since it was your support for my book which got the ball rolling in its favour at the Press, I assume that you will be interested to read the enclosed judgment of Deputy Judge Gavin Lightman QC, which he delivered on 16th March and against which I have lodged an appeal.
Since you apparently believe that on occasion a citizen has a duty to break the law, I guess you will decide that on this occasion the Press is obliged to ignore the judge's recommendations.
Yours sincerely, Andrew Malcolm
On 11th May 1990, Ryan replied from Princeton as follows. It was my first ever communication from him - six years after he had first read and approved OUP's publication of Making Names. - A. M.
Dear Mr Malcolm,
Thank you for your letter and the copy of the judge's findings. I must say that I am more surprised by the behaviour of the Press's solicitors than anything. It is quite clear that Henry Hardy did not have the authority to issue a contract single-handed, and so far as I can see the Press would have been wise to rely on that defence from the beginning.
As to the merits of the case, my own sense is that we were at cross-purposes from the start, and that that was at the heart of the matter. I liked the book on first reading, and thought it would make an interesting introduction to philosophy; it was clear all along that in its full form it would never get past the Delegates, who are, quite rightly, conservative about the sort of book they issue as an academic monograph. To succeed, it would always have to have been a paperback aimed at beginners.
To be that, it would have had to be pruned of the play at the end to which you were so attached, and would have had had to preserve the freshness and amusingness of the dialogue without - I'm not quite sure how to put this - having quite so much of the yahoo-ing and leering quality of some of it. Since the book was imaginative and interesting, it seemed to me that if that had been what you had wanted to do, it could have been done. I think in retrospect that there would have been trouble persuading the Press to publish it even so, because publishers and booksellers agree that a trade philosophy book is a contradiction in terms. Henry Hardy would have found it extremely difficult to persuade the editorial meeting to risk it - and I would certainly have had a difficult time trying to persuade the Delegates if it had got that far. I explained all this to your solicitor at least twice, but may have made little impression. I should perhaps add that on second reading I did not "rubbish" the book - that's not really my style - but did think that it had gone downhill; partly, the yahooing was more obtrusive, perhaps because tastes had changed in the meanwhile, but also some of the life had gone out of it, and it was further away from being the sort of thing I had imagined it might turn out into.
I am sorry you have had such a miserable time over this. As you know, I think the Press was legally absolutely in the right, even though I'm sorry it hasn't got a small corner where one could take risks with books of the kind yours could have turned into it. I hope you won't go to appeal; the press will surely make a stronger defence the second time round and you may not find a judge who leans over so far backward to be kind to you. Would you not to better to expend your energies on looking for a less risk-averse publisher?
Best wishes, Alan Ryan
Now go to Alan Ryan's next contribution - his 1991 American affidavit rubbishing Making Names for the damages assessment, or to his original favourable reports of 11/2/1985 and 18/7/1985 on Making Names' first draft, the reports that "got the ball rolling". Then go to Ryan's THES letter of 13th April 2001 which got the ball rolling again.
Students of Psychopolitics may also wish to leaf through a linked series of some of Ryan's other public contributions, starting with Give us the Money, The Guardian 19/11/97. For his latest, go to the site index panel.
Return/go to Malcolm's Statement of Claim, to the Case History, to the Affidavits: Ivon Asquith (1); Asquith (2); Henry Hardy; William Shaw (solicitor) (1); Sir Roger Elliott (1); Margaret Goodall; to the Witness Statements: Elliott; Hardy; Richard Charkin; Nicola Bion; Goodall, to the courtroom testimony of the Oxford Six, 14/3/1990: Elliott; Goodall; Bion; Asquith; Charkin; Hardy, to the testimony of Andrew Malcolm 13/3/1990, to the CHANCERY COURT JUDGMENT, to the Cambridge package and the Adrasteia package, to the publishing contract affidavits: Giles Gordon (1); Mark Le Fanu, to the APPEAL COURT JUDGMENT, to the damages affidavits: Alan Ryan; Asquith (3); Jeremy Mynott; Giles Gordon (2); Fred Nolan; Roy Edgley, to McGregor on Royalties (transcript), to the DAMAGES FINDINGS, and to the Settlement agreement.
Go/return to the Malcolm vs. Oxford I (1984-92) Case Index, to the Malcolm vs. Oxford II (2001-02) Case Index, to the blurb for Making Names, to its reviews, to The Remedy, or to the SITE INDEX.