Conrad, Joseph

NOTES ON MY BOOKS

Garden City, New York and Toronto: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1921. First edition, this is No. 24 of 250 copies signed by Joseph Conrad. Octavo. Original paper vellum-covered boards, with decorative gilt stamping and blue accents. Period bookplate to the front pastedown. Some general shelfwear and soiling to the boards.

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) was an English novelist and short-story writer of Polish descent, whose works include the novels Lord Jim (1900), Nostromo (1904), and The Secret Agent (1907) and the short story “Heart of Darkness” (1902). During his lifetime, Conrad was admired for the richness of his prose and his renderings of dangerous life at sea and in exotic places. But his initial reputation as a masterful teller of colorful adventures of the sea masked his fascination with the individual when faced with nature’s invariable unconcern, man’s frequent malevolence, and his inner battles with good and evil. To Conrad, the sea meant above all the tragedy of loneliness. A writer of complex skill and striking insight, but above all of an intensely personal vision, he has been increasingly regarded as one of the greatest English novelists.