I respond to your letter of 18 January by saying that I have chosen Zone, under the terms that this publishing house now proposes to you.[2] It is clear, [when choosing] between two merchants, that it is necessary to prefer the one who makes the best propositions (it being understood that the two merchants draw upon the same Nicholson-Smith translation, which has never been the subject of litigation). I also find the pretense of the other[3] to obtain the worldwide English-language rights with such provincial resources to be rather disproportionate.[4]
Since Madame Naddaff has recalled that her publishing house previously committed a few blunders concerning my preceding publisher, I completely count on you to see that nothing similar takes place with my current publisher.
Quite cordially,[1] Translator's note: The director of foreign language rights at Editions Gallimard.
[2] To buy the [Anglo-American] rights for The Society of the Spectacle, which had supposedly fallen into the public domain.
[3] Verso Books. [Translator: Verso had already published bad translations of Debord's Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (1989) and Panegyric (1991), but Debord apparently didn't know that these translations were bad.]
[4] Translator's note: Verso, which has offices in both London and New York, proposed to print up a first run of only 2,000 copies.
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! June 2009. Footnotes by the publisher, except where noted.)