The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad: 1923-1924

Volume Eight of Conrad's collected letters covers the last nineteen months of his life (1923-24). Much of this correspondence is unpublished; its editors have had access to the major private collections as well as holdings in public and academic libraries. The letters themselves are accompanied by notes on contexts, allusions, and editorial problems, and prefaced with a general introduction and biographies of the correspondents. Letters to his family written during his visit to the United States are a notable feature of this collection, which is also rich in comments on literary questions, current events, his experiences at sea, the reception of The Rover, and work on his unfinished novel, Suspense.

“'... the meticuolous editing of the letters themselves, the supporting documentation - chronology, photographs, biographies of recipients, holders and sources of the letters, footnotes, indexes, statements of editorial principles ad the introductions - are nothing less than superb. ... Throughout, they have indeed offered us 'the feast of reason and the floe of soul' through this intimate contact with the life, mind and art of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers.' Mara Kalnins, Notes and Queries”

'... the meticuolous editing of the letters themselves, the supporting documentation - chronology, photographs, biographies of recipients, holders and sources of the letters, footnotes, indexes, statements of editorial principles ad the introductions - are nothing less than superb. ... Throughout, they have indeed offered us 'the feast of reason and the floe of soul' through this intimate contact with the life, mind and art of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers.' Mara Kalnins, Notes and Queries 'What is so remarkable about these late letters is their energy, freshness and originality ... We turn to the letters, as to the fiction and essays, in order to experience a vanished world and to understand better the mind and temperament that transited to contemporary and future generations those values on which the health of human society depends ... In previous reviews of volumes in the magnificent Cambridge University Press The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad this reviewer has paid tribute to the edition, which is unrivalled for clarity, precision of presentation, and accuracy of scholarship. In addition to the meticulous editing of the letters themselves, the supporting documentation are nothing less than superb. ... The achievement of Laurence Davies and his co-editors in [this] volume, as in the earlier ones, is beyond praise.' Mara Kalnins, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge "The care and scholarly attention the editors have expended in compiling these volumes has made this edition of Conrad's letters far superior to any previous edition....will be one of the most useful resources for Conrad scholars for generations to come." --Choice Magazine

Laurence Davies is Professor and Senior Research Fellow in the Department of English Literature at the University of Glasgow and Visiting Professor of Comparative Literature at Dartmouth College. Gene M. Moore is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Amsterdam.

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