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A Conrad Chronology

Owen Knowles Second edition Author Chronologies General Editor: Norman Page, Emeritus Professor of Modern , University of Nottingham, UK Published titles include: William Baker A WILKIE COLLINS CHRONOLOGY A CHRONOLOGY J. L. Bradley A RUSKIN CHRONOLOGY Michael G. Brennan and Noel J. Kinnamon A SIDNEY CHRONOLOGY 1554– 1654 Gordon Campbell A MILTON CHRONOLOGY Alison Chapman and Joanna Meacock A ROSSETTI FAMILY CHRONOLOGY Edward Chitham A BRONTË FAMILY CHRONOLOGY Martin Garrett A BROWNING CHRONOLOGY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING AND A MARY SHELLEY CHRONOLOGY A. M. Gibbs A BERNARD SHAW CHRONOLOGY Graham Handley AN ELIZABETH GASKELL CHRONOLOGY J. R. Hammond A CHRONOLOGY AN EDGAR ALLAN POE CHRONOLOGY AN H. G. WELLS CHRONOLOGY A CHRONOLOGY Edgar F. Harden A WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY CHRONOLOGY A CHRONOLOGY AN CHRONOLOGY Lisa Hopkins A CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE CHRONOLOGY John Kelly A W. B. YEATS CHRONOLOGY Owen Knowles A CONRAD CHRONOLOGY, SECOND EDITION Nicholas Maltzahn AN ANDREW MARVELL CHRONOLOGY John McDermott A HOPKINS CHRONOLOGY Roger Norburn A CHRONOLOGY A KATHERINE MANSFIELD CHRONOLOGY Norman Page AN CHRONOLOGY AN OSCAR WILDE CHRONOLOGY John Pilling A SAMUEL BECKETT CHRONOLOGY Peter Preston A D. H. LAWRENCE CHRONOLOGY

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Owen Knowles Research Fellow, English Department, University of Hull, UK © Owen Knowles 2014 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 2nd edition 2014 978-1-137-45238-2

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6– 10 Kirby Street, EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 1989 This edition published 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the , the , Europe and other countries.

ISBN 978-1-349-49737-9 ISBN 978-1-137-45239-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137452399

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Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India. To Christine – again This page intentionally left blank Contents

List of Maps viii Series Editor’s Preface ix Preface to the Second Edition xi List of Abbreviations xiv A Note on Names, Titles, Usages and Money xvii Introduction xviii

A Conrad Chronology 1 Select Who’s Who 185 Locations and Addresses 212

Maps 216 Select Bibliography 219 Index 222 1 People, Places and Organizations 222 2 Conrad’s Works 235 3 Conrad’s Reading 238 4 Other Topics 242

vii List of Maps

1 Conrad’s Divided 216 2 Conrad’s 217 3 The River Congo, 1890 218

These maps appear by kind permission of The Centre for Studies, St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, London.

viii Series Editor’s Preface

Most biographies are ill- adapted to serve as works of reference – not surprisingly so, since biographers are likely to regard their function as the devising of a continuous and readable narrative, with excur- sions into interpretation and speculation, rather than a bald recital of facts. There are times, however, when anyone reading for business or pleasure needs to check a point quickly or to obtain a rapid overview of part of an author’s life or career; and at such moments turning over the pages of a biography can be a time- consuming and frustrat- ing occupation. The present series of volumes aims at providing a means whereby the chronological facts of an author’s life and career, rather than needing to be prised out of the narrative in which they are (if they appear at all) securely embedded, can be seen at a glance. Moreover, whereas biographies are often, and quite understand- ably, vague over matters of fact (since it makes for tediousness to be forever enumerating details of dates and places), a chronology can be precise whenever it is possible to be precise. Thanks to the survival, sometimes in very large quantities, of letters, diaries, notebooks and other documents, as well as to thoroughly researched biographies and bibliographies, this material now exists in abundance for many major authors. In the case of, for example, Dickens, we can often ascertain what he was doing in each month and week, and almost on each day, of his prodigiously working life; and the student of, say, David Copperfield is likely to find it fascinating as well as useful to know just when Dickens was at work on each part of that , what other literary enterprises he was engaged in at the same time, whom he was meeting, what places he was visiting, and what were the relevant circumstances of his personal and professional life. Such a chronology is not, of course, a substitute for a biography; but its arrangement, in combination with its index, makes it a much more convenient tool for this kind of purpose; and it may be acceptable as a from of ‘alternative’ biography, with its own distinctive advantages as well as its obvious limitations. Since information relating to an author’s early years is usually scanty and chronologically imprecise, the opening section of some

ix x Series Editor’s Preface volumes in this series groups together the years of childhood and adolescence. Thereafter each year, and usually each month, is dealt with separately. Information not readily assignable to a specific month or day is given as a general note under the relevant year or month. The first entry for each month carries an indication of the day of the week, so that when necessary this can be readily calcu- lated for other dates. Each volume also contains a bibliography of the principal sources of information. In the chronology itself, the sources of many of the more specific items, including quotations, are identified in order that the reader who wishes to do so may consult the original contexts.

Norman Page Preface to the Second Edition

First published in 1989, A Conrad Chronology now enjoys – gratifyingly – something of the status of a standard reference work in its field. Since that time, however, a great deal has happened in the world of Conrad studies, with the intervening period being a veritable golden age in the publication of primary documents associated with the writer’s life and work. The original Chronology is not thereby rendered invalid, but some of its entries now seem decidedly sketchy, tentative or out- of- date. In light of this, and after consultation with Palgrave Macmillan editors, it has been decided that the time has come for a new and revised edition of the Chronology. This second edition – an amended and considerably enlarged version of its predecessor – aims to bring the chronological record fully up- to- date for a new genera- tion of Conrad students and general readers. What are these more recent developments in Conrad studies? As the later ‘Select Bibliography’ (pp. 216– 218) makes clear, the most important scholarly event since 1989 has been the addition of a further six volumes to the author’s (now complete, nine-volume) Collected Letters, covering that part of his life from 1908 to his death in 1924. With many of the letters previously unpublished, these richly annotated volumes offer a compelling portrait of Conrad’s sense of himself as man and writer passing from middle age into his last years (which also bear witness to the growing legend of the writer as ‘wonderful’ Great Man). Running in tandem with this edition, two companion volumes of letters ‘to and about’ Conrad have provided new and different biographical contexts: letters to the writer from his friends, editors and admirers are especially illumi- nating in restoring the quality of exchange and debate with others that inevitably belongs to a major correspondence like Conrad’s; letters about him can powerfully evoke his prominence in a network of third- party correspondence and so breathe new life into the tired description of Conrad’s career as ‘a life in letters’. Another striking development of the last two decades has been the accelerated progress of the monumental Cambridge Edition of the Works of Joseph Conrad, now expanded by some ten further volumes.

xi xii Preface to the Second Edition

Each of these critical editions has the main end of providing a properly edited text; but each also supplies, as an essential feature of its editorial method, a full- scale history of the composition and publication of the particular work. An exceptionally rich resource for the chronologist, these multiplying volumes offer an accurate, richly detailed and sometimes day- to- day calendar of the working novelist’s progress. As a by- product of its main endeavours, the Cambridge Edition also includes another valuable resource in the form of a four- volume collection of contemporary British and American reviews of Conrad’s writings (running to some 2,600 pages). Superseding all other anthologies, this quartet of volumes now makes it possible to follow in amazingly close detail the critical reception of Conrad’s works on first publication and the growth of a major writer’s early reputation. Historical scholarship of such richness and magnitude has inevi- tably impacted upon the second edition of the Conrad Chronology in a variety of ways. At a basic level, it has necessitated some correc- tion and amendment to entries, as undated documents have in the course of time been definitively dated or at least plausibly assigned to a particular month or year. In a handful of exceptional cases, these corrections to the Chronology have involved the re- assigning of entries to entirely different years; numerous other smaller amend- ments to dates, if less dramatic, can nevertheless impact upon a larger sequence of events and significantly unsettle our perception of an existing chronology. In gathering and assimilating more recent findings, the present volume is inevitably much longer and more detailed than its prede- cessor. Its enlargement also involves, I trust, an enriched texture and a more vivid day- to- day history of all the stages of Conrad’s life as man and writer – his working routines, family activities, friendships, illnesses, finances, collaborations, contracts and reading. Given the additional new volumes in the Collected Letters, however, the most substantial expansion in the Chronology occurs, as might be expected, during the years 1908 to 1924. This – the second half of Conrad’s literary career – has its own distinctive phases: the fragile state of his health following upon a breakdown in 1909 (also involving the ques- tion of an artistic decline); the dramatic upturn in his finances after the commercial success of (1914) and (1915); and the disheartening ordeal of the First World War. But also reflected more Preface to the Second Edition xiii clearly in this revised chronology is the different quality in Conrad’s life after the War, as he becomes an ‘eminent’ and lionized public figure, sought after by publishers, aware of his place in the burgeon- ing Conrad industry, making acts of valediction and settlement with the future. Material from unpublished sources has also added many new entries: the substantial correspondence of Conrad’s wife Jessie, now in the process of being edited for publication, has been used to provide different perspectives on the Conrads’ domestic and family life; other materials from the archives of the literary agent J. B. Pinker (Northwestern University at Evanston), the publishers F. N. (Princeton) and J. M. Dent (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), and from the rich holdings at the New York Public Library (Berg) have helped to clarify both Conrad’s often tangled professional dealings and the high- powered marketing strat- egies brought to his later . In line with these changes, the Chronology’s concluding apparatus (its ‘Who’s Who’, bibliography and gazetteer) is also thoroughly revised and updated in order to incorporate recent biographical and critical sources. Additionally, the method of referencing quotations in the main chronology has been re- styled throughout: quotations from letters from, to and about Conrad (as well as from reviews, reminis- cences and other primary documents) are all now identified by refer- ence to the most up- to- date and accessible collections. In the preparation of this second edition, I am especially indebted to the General Editor, Professor Norman Page, to Benjamin Doyle and Sophie Ainscough at Palgrave Macmillan, for their patience and support, and to Linda Auld and Mervyn Thomas for their input. List of Abbreviations

Individuals

Apollo (father) Blackwood William Blackwood Bobrowski (uncle) Borys Borys Conrad (son) Curle Dawson Francis Warrington Dawson Ewa Ewa Korzeniowska (mother) Ford Garnett Gibbon Reginald Perceval Gibbon Gosse Graham R. B. Hope George Fountaine Weare Hope James Henry James JC Joseph Conrad Jessie Jessie Conrad (wife) John John Conrad (son) Pinker James Brand Pinker (literary agent) Poradowska Marguerite Poradowska Rothenstein Walpole

Works

The Arrow The Mirror The Mirror of the Sea

xiv Abbreviations xv

The The Nigger of the ‘’ An Outcast An

Collections

LE NLL Notes on Life and Letters SS A Set of Six TH Tales of Hearsay TLS ’Twixt Land and Sea TOS , and Other Stories TU Tales of Unrest WT Within the YOS Youth, A Narrative; and Two Other Stories

Other Abbreviations

Baines Jocelyn Baines, Joseph Conrad: A Critical Biography (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1960). CD ‘The Congo Diary’, in Joseph Conrad, Last Essays, ed. Harold Ray Stevens and J. H. Stape (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 123– 37. CDOUP Joseph Conrad: Congo Diary and Other Uncollected Pieces, ed. Zdzisław Najder (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978). CL The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad, General Editors Frederick R. Karl and Laurence Davies, with Owen Knowles, Gene M. Moore and J. H. Stape, 9 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983– 2007). CPB Conrad’s Polish Background: Letters to and from Polish Friends, ed. Zdzisław Najder, trans. Halina Carroll (London: Oxford University Press, 1964). CR Joseph Conrad: The Contemporary Reviews, General Editors Allan H. Simmons, John G. Peters and xvi Abbreviations

J. H. Stape, with Richard Niland, Mary Burgoyne and Katherine Isobel Baxter, 4 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). CUFE Conrad under Familial Eyes, ed. Zdzisław Najder, trans. Halina Carroll- Najder (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Gordan J. D. Gordan, Joseph Conrad: The Making of a Novelist (Cambridge, MA: Press, 1940). JCC Jessie Conrad, Joseph Conrad and his Circle (London: Jarrolds, 1935). JCTR John Conrad, Joseph Conrad: Times Remembered (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). LBM Joseph Conrad: Letters to William Blackwood and David S. Meldrum, edited by William Blackburn (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1958). MDF ‘My Dear Friend’: Further Letters to and about Joseph Conrad, ed. Owen Knowles (: Rodopi, 2008). MFJC Borys Conrad, My Father: Joseph Conrad (London: Calder & Boyars, 1970). Najder Zdzisław Najder, Joseph Conrad: A Life (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2007). PMMag Pall Mall Magazine. Portrait A Portrait in Letters: Correspondence to and about Conrad, ed. J. H. Stape and Owen Knowles (Amsterdam: Rodopi 1996). RAC Royal Automobile Club. Stape 2007 J. H. Stape, The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad (London: , 2007). Stape 2009 J. H. Stape, ‘Sketches from the Life: The Conrads in the Diaries of Hugh Walpole’, The Conradian, 34.1 (2009), 163– 84.

Note: Conrad letters (or extracts from them) known to exist through their appearance in auction- catalogues but not included in Collected Letters are identified by the designation ‘Private collection’. A Note on Names, Titles, Usages and Money

Although the name ‘Joseph Conrad’ is an anglicized form adopted as a pen- name in 1894, I have used the abbreviation ‘JC’ throughout this chronology, even during the writer’s early Polish years. In line with common practice, the abbreviation for Ford Madox Hueffer derives from the surname (Ford) he adopted in 1919, with the Hueffer surname retained only for his wife Elsie, from whom he was estranged in 1909. For the sake of clarity and economy, items in the Conrad canon are formally identified by their publication titles as found in the Dent Collected Edition ( 1946– 54). Details of the various working- titles used by Conrad during composition and, in the case of shorter items, for first magazine publication can be found in Theodore Ehrsam’s A Bibliography of Joseph Conrad (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1969). All page references to Conrad’s works (with the excep- tion of ‘The Congo Diary’) are also to this Dent Edition. Unless otherwise stated, the place of publication for all books referred to in the concluding ‘Select Who’s Who’, ‘Locations and Addresses’ and ‘Select Bibliography’ is London. Where the context does not make it clear, all references to streets, business premises, theatres, hotels and cafés are to a London loca- tion. All singular verbs in the following entries that lack an explicitly identified subject refer to Conrad. Unspaced points (...) in quoted material represent an omission made by the compiler; spaced points (. . .) signify an ellipsis already present in the quoted material. Present- day equivalents for sums of money referred to in this chro- nology can be arrived at by multiplying amounts by approximately 360, a figure provided by the average earnings indicator on the Economic History Services website (www.eh.net).

xvii Introduction

The documentary materials that help us to understand the life and works of Joseph Conrad ( 1857– 1924) are dauntingly large in quantity and variety (embracing as they do official records, letters, diaries, reminiscences, bibliographies, and so on). They can also be as far- flung as the author’s life itself, which included three countries of residence and touched upon all five continents: ‘citizen of the world’, a descriptive epithet from Conrad’s Victory, also has personal application to a man and writer with so many contacts in so many countries and whose letters are now housed in places as far apart as London, Canberra and Honolulu. As a work of distillation and assimilation, this chronology is designed to provide a clear, readable and compact digest of Conrad’s fascinating life as it develops from year to year. Its form – that of a series of diary or chronicle entries – clearly differs from the continu- ous prose demanded in conventional biography and so caters for the reader who may wish to check a single fact, follow the evolution of a Conrad work or find an answer to questions of ‘where, when, and with whom?’ In addition, the main contents are supplemented by a ‘Select Who’s Who’, indexes and maps that provide easy access to a wide range of information. Daringly unchronological though Conrad may be in his fiction, the heat and stress of his own unfolding present as a writer can emerge with striking in the chronological diary- form: its lin- ear sequences seem especially suitable for following the eccentric ‘runaway’ quality of Conradian composition, the interacting and cumulative stresses (and sometimes ) during his hectic major period, and the survival tactics that he developed to live with serial deadlines and financial need. At the same time, this chronology is not situated exclusively in a continuous present. Process and pattern are as important in rendering a life- history as are grain and texture, and I have sometimes taken the opportunity to stand back and pro- vide larger narrative and contextual direction in order to underline significant phases, landmarks and rituals in Conrad’s career. These directions, whether implicit or explicit, should become fully evident

xviii Introduction xix to the reader who wishes to enjoy this chronology as a continuous narrative. Two main emphases are at work in the choice and disposition of material. While attempting to cover the whole of Conrad’s life, I have given special emphasis to the literary career that begins with the publication of Almayer’s Folly in 1895. Hence the first 30 years of his life – divided almost equally between his Polish youth and a widely- travelled career at sea – are covered summarily in order to achieve a closer day- by- day focus upon the writer living and working within an English context. In the treatment of that literary life, a main emphasis falls on the compositional and publishing history of Conrad’s writings, both fictional and non- fictional. The lesser item in the Conrad canon gen- erally receives a single entry that combines date of completion, first newspaper or magazine appearance, and a reference to the volume in which it was later collected. and important short stories are naturally treated with greater detail in an attempt to follow their difficult and sometimes painfully slow evolution. In Conrad’s case, the unfolding drama of composition has many varied sub- plots: it involves the growth into full- length novels of what were originally conceived as short stories; long- term checks and delays with some novels (such as The Rescue and Chance); and crisis conditions pro- duced by his choosing to juggle with competing projects at the same time – and this is not to mention manuscripts burnt by fire and sunk with the Titanic! In approaching a literary life such as Conrad’s there must inevitably be room for considerable flexibility, since the history of his develop- ment and reputation can never be divorced from a whole complex of related factors – the history of his illnesses, writer’s block, financial difficulties, collaborations, dependencies, his professional reading and the marketing of his fiction. Again, the process by which Conrad unburdened himself creatively often required many others to help him carry the burden, with the that several of his novels were, in the widest sense, collaborative occasions. Hence an account of his unfolding career would be unthinkable without detailed references to a group of intimates and supporters such as Edward Garnett, , his agent J. B. Pinker, R. B. Cunninghame Graham, Perceval Gibbon and William Rothenstein. These and other figures will appear in the following pages to indicate that there is more, xx Introduction much more, than a grain of truth in H. G. Wells’s wry suggestion in 1904 that the needy and impractical Conrad ‘ought to be adminis- tered by trustees’ (to Bennett, 29 March). While accuracy has everywhere been sought for in matters of dat- ing and historical detail, the search itself can easily be frustrated by notoriously shadowy places in Conradian biography. For one thing, parts of his early life still only yield rescued fragments and tentative dates. Even when documentary evidence is fuller, other gaps and indeterminacies can arise through the fallible memory, or Conrad’s self- mythologizing, or his self- confessed proneness to optical delu- sions about the scope of his work- in- progress. While every effort has been made to consult and weigh available evidence, the reader should be forewarned that the elusive Conrad, like his own , does not always emerge in clear and singular outline and that we may sometimes have to be content with the humanly approximate. A further difficulty can arise in the attempt to chronicle Conrad’s reading of other authors and works, partly because that reading is so prodigious as to demand a chronology in itself. But it is also the case that, while much is known about Conrad’s revered writers and about his habit of reading ‘professionally’ for his own fiction, one cannot always specify when or how often he took up certain works. Though he read avidly as a seaman, devoured source- books as a writer, and owned a large library at his death, he kept no formal record or com- monplace book to indicate specific times and volumes. In an area where completeness would be an impossible ideal, I have at least tried to indicate the various kinds of reading undertaken by Conrad at various stages of his life. Some of these general kinds can be listed as follows: early contacts with literature and influences upon the apprentice writer; reading for professional reasons (of non- fiction as well as fiction); reading of works by writers in the Conrad circle; books sent to him by his contemporaries; his familiarity with litera- tures of three languages; books that he reread frequently; and the kinds of reading that he enjoyed for relaxation. As a digest of existing factual knowledge, this chronology owes an obvious debt to an entire community of Conrad scholars from pioneers such as G. Jean- Aubry and J. D. Gordan to later figures such as Zdzisław Najder, Norman Sherry, and the editors of letter- collections. Institutions have also played an important part, and I should like to thank the library staffs at the Beinecke Rare Book and Introduction xxi

Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, ; the Berg Collection, Astor, Lennox and Tilden Foundations, New York Public Library; the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austin (Texas); the Lilly Library, University of Indiana at Bloomington; Princeton University Libraries; Pierpoint Morgan Library, New York; the British Library; and the Brynmor Jones Library, University of Hull for their patience and help. On a more personal note, I owe thanks to a number of friends and colleagues, especially Mary Burgoyne, Keith Carabine, Alexandre Fachard, the late Hans van Marle, Gene M. Moore, J. H. Stape and Ray Stevens, all of whom have generously shared the fruits of their work- in- progress. My most considerable debts of gratitude are to Laurence Davies, whose exemplary annotation in the Collected Letters volumes has been a wonderful resource, and to Allan Simmons, who has unfailingly provided wise advice, practical help and good- humoured encouragement. A Conrad Chronology

Early Years (1857– 73)

1857 (3 Dec) Józef Teodor Konrad Nałęcz Korzeniowski is born in Berdichev in western , a part of Poland annexed by Russia since 1795. He is the only child of Apollo Korzeniowski, a writer, translator and Polish patriot (born 1820) and Ewa (née Bobrowska, born 1832), who were married on 4 May 1856. Both parents are members of the landowning or class, although from families markedly different in their traditions and commitments. The politi- cally active Korzeniowskis espouse soldierly and chivalric qualities, fervently upholding the tradition of patriotic action against Russia in the name of national independence, democratic reform and the birth of a ‘young Poland’. In the view of Tadeusz Bobrowski, Ewa’s brother and chief spokesman for the family, the Bobrowskis traditionally affirm the tenets of enlightened conservatism, trusting to ‘realistic’ political adjustment and conciliation as a means to eventual Polish autonomy; no less patriotic than Apollo in his view, Bobrowski asserts the need ‘to make a sober assessment of our posi- tion, to abandon our traditional dreams, to draw up a programme of national aims for many years to come, and above all, to work hard, to persevere, and to observe a strict social discipline’ (CUFE, p. 36). These varied inheritances come together in the three forenames chosen for JC, the first two derived from his grandfathers and the third (Konrad) from the name of the hero and Romantic patriot in ’s poetic drama [‘Forefathers’ Eve’] (1823).

1 2 A Conrad Chronology

JC is also a Nałęcz Korzenioswki, ‘Nałęcz’ being ‘the heraldic name of the family coat- of- arms’ (Baines, p. 1). JC’s father celebrates the christening of his son with a poem, ‘To My Son Born in the 85th Year of Muscovite Oppression’ (CUFE, pp. 32– 3).

1859– 60 After spending the first of their married life in Łuczyniec and Derebczynka (where Apollo had a brief, unsuccessful career as an estate- manager), the Korzeniowskis move at the beginning of 1859 to Zhitomir. Here Apollo can devote himself to his literary and politi- cal activities: he writes and translates extensively, adding to his first play Comedy (1855) another satirical comedy, For the Love of Money, published and successfully staged at this time. During his two years in Zhitomir, Apollo also helps to run a publishing company and is increasingly engaged in underground political activities.

1861 Leaving his family in Zhitomir, Apollo moves in May to (scene of recent patriotic demonstrations) ostensibly to establish a new literary journal Dwutygodnik [‘Fortnightly’], but mainly to devote himself to clandestine political activity. Ewa writes to Apollo on 17 July that ‘Konrad is growing into a lovely boy. He has a heart of gold and with the ground you prepare for him[,] there should be no problems with his conscience and mind. He often goes to church with me and almost always gives alms’ (CUFE, p. 53). When she and her son join Apollo in the autumn, their home at 43 Nowy Swiat´ becomes a centre for the underground Committee of the Movement. On 20 October, Apollo is arrested on four counts of subversive activ- ity and spends seven months awaiting trial in the ; Ewa too is later accused of unlawful conspiracy against the state.

1862 After military trial, Apollo and Ewa are sentenced on 9 May to exile and, with their four- year- old son, escorted under police supervision to Vologda, 300 miles north- east of Moscow. Ewa and her son fall ill before the long and difficult journey is finished on 12 June – she through physical collapse, he with pneumonia. The harsh Russian conditions, soon to take their toll on the whole family, are graphi- cally evoked in Apollo’s early letter from the ‘huge quagmire’ that is 1864–65 3

Vologda (CUFE, pp. 65– 9). Here the Korzeniowskis, joining a com- munity of Polish exiles living under police surveillance, are assigned a rudimentary wooden house on Bolshoi Kozlenskaia Street. In late September, they learn that they have been allowed to move south to Chernigov, near Kiev, although their departure is delayed by health problems and the state of the local roads.

1863 At the new year Bobrowski presents JC with the gift of a book, Les Anges de la terre (1844) by A. E. de Saintes. Later in the month the Korzeniowskis arrive in Chernigov, where news of the 1863 insur- rection meets them. (The insurrection steadily weakens in momen- tum during the coming months and is finally crushed in 1864.) In the early autumn Ewa and her son are allowed three months leave for medical treatment and to visit her relatives at Nowochwastów, the estate of Bobrowski’s parents- in- law. Already a ‘great reader’ (, p. 70), JC has his first lessons in French. On her return to exile Ewa, now suffering from , begins to dete- riorate in health.

1864– 65 Apollo returns to his literary activity, resuming his work and in 1864, in response to the harsher regime imposed by the Russians, also composing the angry political broadside ‘Poland and Muscovy’ (CUFE, pp. 75– 88). During this period in Chernigov, JC probably makes his first contact with imaginative literature by way of Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby (1839) and (1854), and Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593). In early childhood he is also introduced to Polish Romantic poetry through the works of Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki, which Apollo recites aloud. Ewa’s illness worsens rapidly, and by January 1865 she is a perma- nent invalid, with Apollo so busy nursing her that their young son is badly ‘neglected’ (CUFE, p. 91). When she dies (18 April 1865), father and seven- year- old son are left in gloomy isolation, the now- bereft and melancholy Apollo overseeing the education of his poor ‘little orphan’ (CUFE, p. 102) and kept afloat by an allowance from Bobrowski. JC later remembers his father of this period as a ‘man of great sensibilities; of exalted and dreamy temperament; with a terri- ble gift of and of gloomy disposition; withal of strong religious 4 A Conrad Chronology feeling degenerating after the loss of his wife into mysticism touched with despair’ (to Garnett: CL, II, 247). Close to his eighth birthday (3 Dec) JC receives a substantial gift of 1,000 roubles from his great- aunt for ‘boots, galoshes, and a fur- coat’ (CUFE, p. 101).

1866 JC’s long summer stay at Nowochwastów with his maternal grand- mother Teofila Bobrowska is marred by illness in August. It is prob- ably during this visit that he meets Prince Roman , who provides the basis for the hero- patriot in ‘Prince Roman’ (TH). Accompanied by his grandmother, JC returns to Chernigov for the autumn but still suffers from migraine, nervous fits and epileptic symptoms. His grandmother takes him to Kiev for medical treatment and then back to Nowochwastów, where his illness continues; in December he requires further treatment in Kiev, where he remains until the following spring. Apollo describes the boy’s illness as ‘very rare with children: gravel forms in his bladder and causes gripes’ (CPB, p. 9). He reports that after only one year of tuition, JC is now proficient in French (CUFE, p. 111).

1867 In spring, on another visit to the country, JC falls ill with German measles and requires medical treatment in Zhitomir. In the summer, with Bobrowski, he probably has his first sight of the sea in Odessa, a Black Sea port. Apollo and his son are reunited in the autumn, when the boy makes a first contact with sea literature through his father’s translation of ’s Les Travailleurs de la mer (1866). On 14 December, the ailing Apollo is granted a permit by the Russian authorities to leave Chernigov for a warmer climate in Madeira or Algeria, although poor health and lack of money prevent any relocation.

1868 (Feb) The seriously ill Apollo and his son finally settle in Lemberg in Austrian Poland. (17 March) He declares that he intends to bring up JC ‘not as a democrat, aristocrat, demagogue, republican, monarchist … but only as a Pole’ (CUFE, p. 113). 1869 5

(April) They spend some time at the family estate of Count Władysław Mniszek near Premy´sl, where Apollo first considers a move to Cracow to edit Kraj [‘The Nation’], a periodical soon to be established, and to secure a better formal education for JC. (June) Deteriorating health takes Apollo, with his son, to the resort of Topolnica, 30 miles from Warsaw, where he undergoes a four- month cure before returning to Lemberg. (Oct) He plans a polemical novel ‘about the depravity flowing to us from Moscow’ (CUFE, p. 122). Now able to write fluently, JC is remembered as having produced about this time several fiercely patriotic plays ‘on the subject of the insurgents fighting against the Muscovites’, one of them called The Eyes of King Jan Sobieski, and impresses everyone with his extensive reading of Mickiewicz’s poetry (Najder, p. 33). (Dec) During this period, JC receives an education based on the local school syllabus but does not attend formal classes, with respon- sibility for his tuition shared between Apollo and a young tutor from a neighbourhood high- school.

1869 On 20 February, Apollo and his son move to Cracow, living in a flat at 6 Poselska Street. On 23 May, Apollo dies. His funeral on the 26th turns into a huge patriotic demonstration, with the 11- year- old JC at the head of a procession of several thousand people. The journal Kraj (27 May) reports: ‘It has been a long time since Cracow has seen such an impressive funeral – not so much because of the external pomp, but because of the participation and tears of the inhabitants’ (CUFE, pp. 129– 30). The epitaph on Apollo’s tombstone in Rakowice Cemetery records that he was ‘a victim of Muscovite tyranny ... [a] man who loved his homeland, laboured for her, and died for her’. Temporarily placed in a Cracow boarding- school run by Ludwik Georgeon, the orphan is looked after by his father’s close friend, Stefan Buszczynski,´ and also by his devoted grandmother Teofila. She summarizes his present educational attainment as follows: ‘The boy’s ignorance of the German and languages prevents him from attending the second class ... [but his] teachers praise his industry, comprehension and application’ (CUFE, p. 131). During the summer, she takes JC for a water- cure to Württemberg in Bavaria and, on the way back, leaves him with Georgeon in Cracow. 6 A Conrad Chronology

1870– 73 On 2 August 1870, official guardianship of the youth is granted to Teofila Bobrowski and Count Władysław Mniszek, with ‘Konradek’ going to live at his grandmother’s Cracow flat at 9 Szpitalna Street from late 1870 to May 1873. It is Bobrowski, however, who is most influential in overseeing his education and financial affairs. Little is known of the boy’s formal education at this time, but there is little evidence to support JC’s later claim that he at some point attended Saint Anne’s Gymnasium in Cracow (CUFE, p. 198). Indeed, his persistent ill- health (he continues to suffer from severe headaches and nervous attacks) means that formal schooling is probably spas- modic and irregular. Much of his education is placed in the hands of Adam Marek Pulman, a medical student at Cracow’s , who also accompanies JC on regular summer trips to the resort- town of Krynica in the Carpathian foothills. His informal reading (much of it in French as well as Polish translation) seems to have expanded dramatically, taking in such authors as , Fenimore Cooper, Mungo Park, Sir Leopold McClintock, David Livingstone, Sir Walter Scott and William Thackeray, and works such as Dickens’s Bleak House (1853), Cervantes’s Don Quixote ( 1605– 15), Alain- René Lesage’s Gil Blas ( 1715– 35), ’s (1867) and A Nest of Gentlefolk (1858), Alfred de Vigny’s Chatterton (1835) and Louis Garneray’s Voyages, aventures et combats (1853). An attempt to gain Austrian citizenship for the boy is unsuccessful in 1872. In that same year, he surprises his relatives by expressing the desire to go to sea, a romantic ambition no doubt fired by his read- ing of light sea- literature and one apparently viewed by Bobrowski as ‘ well-nigh a betrayal of patriotic duties’ (CUFE, p. 141). On a sum- mer break to Switzerland in 1873, Pulman is probably requested to try to dissuade JC, ‘an incorrigible, hopeless Don Quixote’ (A Personal Record, p. 44), from his growing urge to go to sea. On their return in August, Bobrowski arranges for the boy to live in Lemberg with Antoni Syroczynski,´ who runs a boarding- house for orphans of the 1863 insurrection. JC is remembered at this period as poring over (his favourite magazine being Wędrowiec [‘The Wanderer’], an illustrated travel magazine) and as wishing ‘to get to know the world’; attending lectures given by local university profes- sors, he enjoys those on natural science and literature (CUFE, p. 140). 1875 7

Sea Years (1874– 93)

1874 Removed from Lemberg in September and with preparations already afoot to further his ambition to go to sea, the 16- year- old youth departs for on 13 October and makes what he will later describe in A Personal Record as ‘a, so to speak, standing jump out of his racial surroundings and associations’ (p. 121). One determining reason for his departure is that, as the son of a political prisoner, he is liable to conscription in the Russian army. On the other hand, his status in France as a Russian subject seeking employment in French vessels will be complicated by the recruitment law which lays down that ‘tout homme au dessus de quinze ans ne peut cesser d’être sujet russe, à moins d’avoir satisfait complètement aux obligations militaires ou d’en être exempté’ (Annuaire de législation étrangère, 1875, p. 606). Travelling via Vienna, Zurich and Lyons, he arrives in Marseilles to be looked after by Victor Chodz´ko, an ex- seaman in his mid- twenties, with contacts in shipping circles. JC lodges at 18 rue Sainte, near the Vieux Port. Chodz´ko’s friend Jean- Baptiste Solari recommends JC to his cousin Jean- Baptiste- Louis Delestang, the head of a small family shipping firm, a supporter of the Bourbon res- toration and Carlist sympathizer. On 3 December, JC is 17, a period of his life of which he will later say: ‘Since the age of 17 I was no longer a boy … A man that takes care of himself is no longer a boy’ (Private collection). JC’s sea- life begins on 15 December when he sails as a passenger on the Delestang- owned Mont- Blanc, a barque commanded by Captain Sever Ournier bound for Saint- Pierre, .

1875 The Mont- Blanc arrives in the Saint- Pierre roads on 6 February for a seven- week stay. She begins her homeward voyage on 31 March, via the Straits of Gibraltar (5 May), returning to Marseilles on 23 May after a round- passage of five months. He soon repeats the same voy- age in the Mont- Blanc, this time as a novice or ship’s boy serving under Captain Jean- Prosper Duteil, leaving on 25 June for Saint- Pierre, where the ship arrives on 31 July. She leaves on 23 September, stop- ping over at Saint- Thomas (now the Virgin Islands) and Cap Haïtien 8 A Conrad Chronology

(Haïti), where she remains during October and from where she departs for home on 1 November. After a total voyage of six months, JC arrives in Le Havre on 23 December, returning to Marseilles via Paris.

1876 The first six months of the year find JC enjoying the social, cultural and bohemian excitements of Marseilles – ‘where the puppy opened his eyes’, as he later comments (to Galsworthy: CL, III, 240). Its bus- tling café- and harbour- life is an obvious attraction and no doubt accounts for the young man’s substantial overspending. He also enjoys the thriving theatre and opera (Sardou, Scribe, Meyerbeer, Offenbach and, above all, Bizet’s Carmen). The young seaman – ‘de Korzeniowski’, as he seems to have been styled – also regularly mingles in gatherings at the Delestang family salon, which brings together local supporters of the Bourbon dynasty as well as active Carlist sympathizers as later described in The Mirror of the Sea and The Arrow of Gold. He appears to neglect the educational study expected of him by Bobrowski, who also suspects himself of being tricked into sending extra funds by a financial intrigue concocted by JC and his friend Chodz´ko. Shore- life comes to an end on 10 July when JC sails as a steward under Captain Casimir Escarras in the Saint- Antoine, a Delestang- chartered barque bound for Martinique. Its crew-members include two men who will re- appear in JC’s memoirs and fiction – the first mate Dominique Cervoni (prototype of and Jean Peyrol) and an apprentice, César Cervoni, from the same Corsican village but only very distantly related. Entries in the ship’s Agreement and Account of Crew indicate beyond doubt that on arrival in Martinique on 18 August the Saint- Antoine stays in the Saint- Pierre roads and does not visit ports in Columbia and Venezuela. It remains a possibility that JC absents himself from ship temporarily, but if he does visit South American ports (as he will later claim), it would only be possible in regular mail steamers, not under sail, in order to be back in time to join the ship for her return voyage to France. Five weeks later, on 25 September, the Saint- Antoine departs via St Lucia for Saint- Thomas (Virgin Islands), arriving on the 27th for a fortnight’s stay. Leaving on 12 October, she takes a further fortnight 1878 9 to reach Port- au- Prince, Haïti (26 Oct) and departs from Miragoâne on 23 December for Marseilles. On 3 December, JC is 19.

1877 Arriving back in Marseilles on 15 February, JC is prevented by illness from rejoining the Sainte- Antoine when she sails on 31 March. A disa- greement with Delestang in early summer leaves him in the position of having to look for gainful employment. Unsettled and short of money, JC writes to Bobrowski about his future prospects, including plans to join the British Merchant Marine (with a view to naturaliza- tion) and even to enlist in the Japanese navy. The later part of the year (until March 1878) constitutes one of the most mysterious periods of JC’s life, one that begins when Bobrowski sends his nephew 3,000 francs in the belief that he is embarking on a world voyage. The main sources for one version of JC’s activities during late 1877, his own later highly- coloured accounts in The Mirror and The Arrow, suggest that as one of a syndicate of four and in the company of the Cervonis he is engaged in running guns to Spain for the Carlist cause in the Tremolino, with the outcome that the ship is deliberately sunk to prevent capture and César Cervoni ignominiously drowned. The smuggling venture is organized by ‘Rita de Lastaola’, with whom JC supposedly falls in love and on whose behalf he is wounded in a duel in 1878. Some of this account is patently disqualified by known facts (for example, César Cervoni was alive well beyond 1877); factual corroboration for many of the other events is slight; and larger historical ‘chronology … weighs heavily against Conrad’s involvement in any gun- running for the Carlist pretender to the Spanish throne’ (Stape, 2007, p. 29). In addition, the whole episode as later written about by JC must be re- assessed in the light of the version given by Bobrowski when he arrives in Marseilles in March 1878.

1878 A different and more prosaic account of ‘Konrad’s Odyssey’ (CPB, p. 179) by Bobrowski suggests that after difficulties concerning his status in French ships, financial setbacks over a proposed smuggling expedition and an indiscreet gambling episode in , JC returns to Marseilles virtually penniless and attempts suicide by shooting himself in the chest, though without serious injury. In 10 A Conrad Chronology early March, Bobrowski hears that his nephew is ‘wounded’, leaves Kiev on 8 March, and arrives on the 11th to find JC out of bed and mobile. He describes him in a letter of the following year as ‘not a bad boy, only one who is extremely sensitive, conceited, reserved, and in addition excitable’ (CPB, p. 177). Bobrowski remains a fort- night in Marseilles, investigating the background of recent events, consulting with Richard Fecht, a German friend of JC’s, and settling his nephew’s considerable debts. A career in French ships being now closed to JC, it is decided that he will join the British Merchant Marine. (24 April) After payment of a considerable deposit, JC sails as unofficial apprentice in the Mavis, a British steamer commanded by Captain Samuel Pipe leaving Marseilles for the Sea of Azov via Constantinople. The ship reaches Malta on 26 April and leaves on the same day for Constantinople, arriving on 2 May on her way to Kerch in the Crimea; she passes through the Straits of Kerch on 6 May, bound for Yeysk on the Sea of Azov, where she takes on a cargo of linseed. In the Mavis he makes his first sustained contact with the English language and the British Merchant Marine. (10 June) After a seven- week voyage, JC first sets foot on English soil at Lowestoft and immediately travels to London. (8 July) A letter from Bobrowski taxes him for overspending and complains that his nephew treats him like a ‘banker’ (CPB, p. 54). (11 July) Under Captain William Cook, he sails in the Skimmer of the Sea as an ordinary seaman and nicknamed ‘Polish Joe’ by the crew, making three voyages from Lowestoft to Newcastle and back before signing off. While based in Lowestoft, he probably stays at the Sailors’ and Fishermen’s Home, though later lodges with a French tailor and his family; his early reading includes the local newspaper, the Lowestoft Standard. After ten weeks of service, during which he improves his colloquial and nautical English, he signs off the Skimmer (23 Sept) and returns to London. With the help of James Sutherland, a shipping- agent, he soon secures a berth as ordinary seaman in the wool clipper Duke of Sutherland, bound for . Under Captain John McKay, the Duke departs on 15 October. On the outward passage he celebrates his 21st birthday (3 Dec) and rounds the Cape of Good Hope for the first time (26 Dec). 1880 11

1879 (31 Jan) The Duke of Sutherland arrives in , with JC remain- ing on board as watchman during her five- month stay alongside the Circular Quay, overlooking busy George Street. Here he makes a first contact with Flaubert’s fiction through Salammbô (1862) and is first attracted to the possibility of working in . Chiefly, however, he hopes to make a quick return to Australia ‘but this time in order to stay there several years – or at least two’ (CPB, p. 180). (5 July) The Duke of Sutherland leaves Sydney. According to a ship- mate’s testimony, on the homeward voyage JC, seemingly always happy to be in his own company, uses his spare time to enhance his English by reading the bible and an English dictionary. After a round- voyage of one year, the Duke arrives in London on 19 October, when JC signs off and stays at the London Sailors’ Home in Well Street, near the Tower of London, possibly until 27 October; he returns to the Sailors’ Home on 23 November and leaves on 11 December. With his uncle’s encouragement, he now plans to take his second mate’s examination and obtain British naturalization, though Bobrowski also points out that ‘staying on land has always had an inauspicious influence upon you’ (CPB, p. 59). (11 Dec) Soon after his 22nd birthday, he enlists as ordinary sea- man in the steamship Europa under Captain Alexander Munro and next day leaves London via Penzance for the Mediterranean, with ports of call in Italy and Greece (including , Naples, Messina, Patras and the island of Cephalonia).

1880 Having had an unpleasant trip in the Europa and a disagreement with her captain, JC arrives back in London on 30 January, staying over- night at the Sailors’ Home. In May of this year or possibly 1881 (as in Stape, 2007), he finds lodgings in the home of William and Dolores Ward (and their eight children) at 6 Dynevor Road, Stoke Newington (his London base until November 1886), where he comes to know his fellow lodger Adolf P. Krieger, a commercial clerk born in . About this time he also meets G. F. W. Hope, an ex- seaman turned businessman, and the three soon become staunch friends. JC attends 12 A Conrad Chronology a special tutorial course under John Newton, head of the Navigation School in Dock Street, London E1, to prepare for his second mate’s examination and to that end also manages to acquire a reference from Delestang. On 28 May he successfully passes his examination, an event bringing his uncle ‘profound pleasure’ (CPB, p. 64). Under Captain William Stuart, he signs on as third mate in the iron clipper Loch Etive – his first berth as an officer. The ship sails from London on 22 August bound for Australia, crosses the Equator on 28 September and arrives in Sydney on 24 November. On 3 December, JC is 23.

1881 (11 Jan) After a seven- week stay, the Loch Etive leaves Sydney with a cargo of wool and, at the end of a total voyage of eight months, arrives in London on 24 April, when JC signs off and lodges for a stay of indeterminate length at the Well Street Sailors’ Home. (20 May) He defers a projected meeting with his uncle and is soon in financial difficulty following a failed speculative venture. Expecting his nephew to be soon bound for Australia, Bobrowski suggests (28 June) that he might write some articles on life at sea for a Polish journal. (13 July) JC again lodges at the Sailors’ Home. (2 Aug) While apparently still staying there, he becomes unwell and is admitted into the Dreadnought Seamen’s Hospital with measles. (10 Aug) In a desperate letter to his uncle requesting £10, JC appar- ently misrepresents the reasons for his present hospitalization, alleging that after sustaining an injury on a recent voyage in the Frost, he has been in hospital and lost all of his baggage. No documentary evidence exists to support this claimed ‘voyage’, which may be a part- invention – not the first or the last on JC’s part – to extract more money from his guardian. (11 Aug) Discharged from hospital, JC leaves the Sailors’ Home three days later. (19 Sept) After signing on as second mate in the Palestine, an old barque (built in 1857) bound for under the command of Captain Elijah Beard, JC begins an ill- fated voyage whose erratic pro- gress later forms the basis of the narrative in ‘Youth’ (where the ship is renamed the Judea). (21 Sept) The Palestine sails from London, stopping at and then, after meeting violent gales, taking three weeks to reach 1883 13

Newcastle (20 Oct), where she remains a further five weeks picking up a cargo of coal. (29 Nov) Leaves Newcastle for Bangkok. (3 Dec) JC’s 24th birthday. (24 Dec) The ship loses a mast and springs a leak in the ; with the crew refusing to continue, she puts back for the deep- water harbour in Falmouth () for repairs.

1882 The Palestine remains in Falmouth’s dry dock for the next eight months undergoing extensive repairs, JC deciding to stay with the ship as a way of accumulating service in preparation for his first mate’s examination. Like the young narrator in ‘Youth’, he enjoys a break in London (where he meets his friend Hope); he is also likely to have had a small library of books to occupy his days – a complete set of Lord Byron’s poems (bought on the trip to London), a one- volume edition of Shakespeare, Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus (1836) and ’s A Ride to Khiva: Travels and Adventures in Central Asia (1876). (17 Sept) The Palestine leaves Falmouth for Bangkok, still com- manded by Captain Beard, but with a new crew. (3 Dec) JC’s 25th birthday.

1883 (12 March) Six months later, spontaneous combustion leads to the ship’s catching fire and causes a coal- gas explosion (14 March), forcing the crew to abandon ship in Bangka Strait, off Sumatra, where the ship sinks on the next day. The crew take to long- boats and row the short distance to Muntok on Bangka Island, arriving at 10 p.m. (21 March) Master, officers and crew leave for Singapore in the SS Sissie, arriving the day after. (2 April) A Marine Court of Enquiry exonerates them from all blame. (3 April) The crew are discharged. JC, hoping for a homeward berth, stays in Singapore at the Sailors’ Home until mid- April. He finally sails home as a passenger, passing through Port Said on 14 May and arriving in London at the end of May. (July) A plan to take his first mate’s examination on the 4th is appar- ently thwarted by JC’s failure to meet Board of Trade requirements for 14 A Conrad Chronology length of service. Later in the month, he travels to meet his uncle in the spa town of Marienbad. (12 Aug) They go to Teplice, a spa town near Prague, for the rest of the month. Bobrowski donates a sum of money to cover the cost of JC’s British naturalization and promises £350 to enable him to invest in Barr, Moering and Co., a firm of shipping agents in London. With Krieger’s help, he duly acquires a small financial interest in the com- pany, works intermittently for the firm during the early and for several years uses their offices as a forwarding address. (10 Sept) JC signs on as second mate, under Captain L. B. McDonald, in the Riversdale, a clipper bound from London to India. Departing three days later, she stays over in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, for two months (7 Dec– 9 Feb). (3 Dec) JC’s 26th birthday.

1884 (6 April) After a seven- month voyage, the Riversdale arrives in Madras, where, following a dispute with the captain, JC is relieved of his position and officially discharged on the 17th. He immediately travels overland to Bombay. (28 April) In Bombay, he signs on as second mate, under Captain Archibald Duncan, in the Narcissus, a clipper later to be memorial- ized in JC’s first sea story, The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’. (5 June) The ship departs for Dunkirk via St Helena (19 Aug). (24 Sept) Joseph Barron, an able seaman possibly originating from St Kitts in the Caribbean, dies at sea. (16 Oct) After a voyage of almost six months, the Narcissus arrives in Dunkirk, JC signing off the next day with a small pet monkey among his belongings. (19 Oct) Back in London, he makes his final visit to the Sailors’ Home, until the 23rd. (17 Nov) Having successfully appealed against the bad- conduct record given to him by Captain McDonald, he is allowed by the London Marine Board to sit for his first mate’s examination, which he fails (a fact unmentioned in A Personal Record): he is found want- ing on the ‘Day’s Work’ section of the navigation test. (3 Dec) He successfully repeats the examination on his 27th birth- day and sets about looking for a job. 1886 15

1885 After a lengthy search for a new berth, JC signs on, under Captain Edwin Blake, as second mate in the Tilkhurst, a clipper leaving Hull (27 April) for Singapore and Indian ports but first stopping over in Penarth (13 May) to pick up a cargo of coal. During her month- long stay, JC makes contact in with an émigré Pole Władysław Spiridion and his family, befriending Władysław’s 36- year- old son Józef. His later letters from the East to Józef, thanking him for copies of the Daily Telegraph and London Evening Standard, represent the earliest surviving examples of his written English. In a letter of 13 October, he revealingly confesses to Józef, ‘When speaking, writ- ing or thinking in English the word Home always means for me the hospitable shores of ’ (CL, I, 12). (10 June) The Tilkhurst sails for Singapore. (22 Sept) She arrives in Singapore for a month’s stay. (19 Oct) She leaves for Calcutta via the Malacca Strait and the Andaman Sea, arriving there on 19 November for a seven- week stay. (Late Nov) JC is now determined to pass his master’s examination in the following year, but is also restless and dissatisfied with pros- pects in the British Merchant Marine and earnestly contemplates an investment in a whaling venture as representing ‘a fresh start in the world’. Seeming to echo the indecisive Hamlet, he asks ‘In what direction to shape my course? That is the question!’ (to Józef Spiridion: CL, I, 13). (3 Dec) JC’s 28th birthday. (19 Dec) A Liberal Party victory in the recent British general elec- tion has left JC ‘grievously disappointed’ and oppressed by the ‘rush of social- democratic ideas’ throughout Europe (to Józef Spiridion: CL, I, 16).

1886 (12 Jan) The Tilkhurst sails from Calcutta via St Helena and, after a total voyage of 14 months, arrives in Dundee on 16 June. (17 June) JC signs off and leaves for London. Letters from Bobrowski again urge him to think of obtaining his master’s certifi- cate and British naturalization. However, the early summer finds JC restless, testing his options, and exploring the possibility of a job on shore in partnership with Krieger. Another option possibly arises in 16 A Conrad Chronology the form of a literary competition in the popular weekly magazine Tit- Bits, which offers 20 guineas for the best article by a seaman on ‘My Experiences as a Sailor’ (closing date for entries, 31 July) and for which JC may have written a , ‘The Black Mate’, his first exercise in fiction. (2 July) With funds from Bobrowski, JC files his petition to become a naturalized British subject, sponsored by Hope (his close friend), E. A. Poole (provisions merchant), John Newton (his recent tutor) and John Weston (manager of the London Sailors’ Home). (28 July) A first attempt at the master’s examination is unsuccess- ful, with JC having failed in arithmetic and on the ‘Day’s Work’ sec- tion of the navigation test. (19 Aug) Happier news arrives when he officially becomes a natu- ralized British subject. (11 Nov) Maintaining silence about his examination failure in letters to Bobrowski (and in his later autobiographical writings), JC successfully retakes his master’s examination, receives his precious certificate and can say that he is ‘now a British master mariner beyond a doubt’ (A Personal Record, p. 120). (3 Dec) JC’s 29th birthday. (28 Dec) He signs on as second mate, under Captain Richard Jones, in the Falconhurst, leaving London for Penarth.

1887 After a five- day voyage, JC signs off on 2 January, no doubt taking the chance to visit the Spiridions in Cardiff. In Penarth, he hears from his London agent of a vacant berth in the Highland Forest and, not having signed up for a second voyage in the Falconhurst, returns to London in order to join the temporarily captainless ship in Amsterdam. There, later in January during freezing winter days, he supervises the loading of the Highland Forest, before officially signing on as first mate, under Captain John McWhir, and sailing for Java on 18 February. On the voyage JC sustains a back injury, probably the result of being hit by a falling spar. When the ship arrives in the Samarang roads (Java) on 20 June, he is advised by a local doctor to go to Singapore for hospital treatment: accordingly he signs off (1 July), leaving Samarang in the SS Celestial the next day and arriving in Singapore on 6 July, a fort- night after the city has celebrated ’s Golden Jubilee. 1888 17

There he spends some time in the European Hospital and possibly a period convalescing in the Sailors’ Home. Establishing contact with James Craig, master of the Arab- owned Vidar, he joins that ship as first mate and, from 22 August, makes four trading- trips between Singapore and small Dutch East Indies ports on and the Celebes ( present- day Kalimantan and Sulawesi, respectively). A main port of call, the settlement of Tanjung Redeb on the Berau River (eastern Borneo), later provides the basis for JC’s fictional ‘Sambir’ in his first two novels. At the Lingard trading- post there he meets Karel William Olmeijer, a Eurasian Dutchman, of whom he later says in A Personal Record: ‘if I had not got to know Almayer pretty well it is almost certain there would never have been a line of mine in print’ (p. 87). Here, JC also probably learns much of the history of the celebrated English adventurer and trader William Lingard, ‘King of the Seas’, the primary source for his fictional creation Tom Lingard and events of the so- called ‘Lingard trilogy’, Almayer’s Folly, An Outcast and The Rescue. (3 Dec) JC’s 30th birthday.

1888 After finally signing off from the Vidar on 5 January, JC lodges at the Sailors’ Home in Singapore for a fortnight. During this stay he is offered and accepts his one and only permanent command – in the Otago, an Australian- owned barque whose captain has recently died. After receiving notice of command from the Master Attendant, Captain Henry Ellis, on the 19th, he travels on the SS Melita to join the ship in Bangkok on the 24th. Events and experiences from the 14- month connection with the Otago will provide the basis for sto- ries that JC will later describe as the ‘Otago Cycle’ (to A. T. Saunders: CL, VI, 99) – ‘Falk: A Reminiscence’, ‘’, ‘A Smile of Fortune’ and ‘The Shadow- Line, A Confession’. Dysentery and cholera among the crew members delay the Otago’s departure for Australia until 9 February (which also marks JC’s last contact with the East). The first stage of the voyage through the Gulf of Siam is complicated by calms and further illness among the crew. Taking three weeks to reach Singapore, the Otago arrives on 1 March and stops over for fresh medical supplies; four of the crew, too ill to continue, are replaced by five new seamen. On 3 March she sets 18 A Conrad Chronology sail again and, after meeting heavy gales on the way south, does not arrive in Sydney until 7 May. A fortnight later, the ship makes a round- voyage to Melbourne, returning to Sydney on 11 July. From there, the Otago sails (7 Aug) to Port Louis, , via the potentially dangerous Torres Strait, arriving on 30 September. During a two- month stay, JC is remem- bered by a Frenchman working in Port Louis (in what is the first extended description of him) as a man of ‘perfect education’ who, unlike any of his seamen- colleagues, presents himself as a dandy, wearing a bowler hat, stylish clothes and gloves, with a gold- knobbed cane – an appearance that helps to explain why JC is nicknamed ‘the Russian count’ by other ships’ captains. He is also described as hav- ing a nervous tic in the shoulder and eyes, giving the impression of being ‘a neurasthenic’ (MDF, p. 171). Soon after arriving, JC is introduced to the household of Louis Edward Schmidt, one of the colony’s senior officials, and seems to have mixed freely in his family circle, playing parlour games, visit- ing the Jardin des Pamplemousses and inviting the family for tea aboard the Otago. The household includes Schmidt’s sister- in- law, the 26- year- old Eugénie Renouf, for whom JC develops a romantic attachment and to whom, a couple of days before departure, he proposes . Finding out that she is already engaged to her cousin, the disappointed suitor leaves with the Otago (21 Nov) for Melbourne. (3 Dec) JC’s 31st birthday.

1889 The Otago arrives in Melbourne on 4 January. Leaving Melbourne on 13 February on what is expected to be the first stage of a voy- age to Port Elizabeth in South Africa, she proceeds to Minlacowie, South Australia (22 Feb– 21 March), where JC and his crew mix with the local farming community and treat the farmers’ wives to a tea- party on board ship. A change in the owners’ plans brings the Otago back with a cargo of wheat to Port Adelaide, where she docks on 26 March. At the end of March, JC suddenly resigns his command and without delay sails for Europe on 3 April in the SS Nürnberg, landing at Southampton on 14 May. In London, JC soon takes rented rooms at 6(?) Bessborough Gardens, Pimlico. On 2 July his release from the status of Russian subject is officially gazetted. During the next few months – one of his 1890 19 longest shore- stays for some years – he casts around for a new com- mand and resumes work at the Barr, Moering warehouse. Many of his leisure hours are occupied with reading, and he seems to have devel- oped a special taste for , particularly for The Innocents Abroad (1869) and Life on the Mississippi (1883). One autumn morning (perhaps after reading an Anthony Trollope novel the night before), he sits down to write a story that evolves over the next five years into Almayer’s Folly and eventually leads ‘not only to a novel but, by unexpected circumstances, to a new way of life’ (Gordan, p. 178). For JC’s own account of this initiatory moment, see A Personal Record, pp. 68– 74. On 24 October, he takes steps to obtain a visa in preparation for his first visit to Poland since leaving the country in 1874. A long- standing wish to go to Africa promises to materialize in late October when, probably through the agency of Krieger, JC goes to Brussels to be interviewed by General Staff Major , aide- de- camp to Leopold II and managing director of the Société Anonyme Belge pour le Commerce du Haut- Congo [Belgian Limited Trading Company for the Upper Congo], with a view to captaining one of the company’s ships in Africa. On 3 December, JC is 32.

1890 The early months of this eventful and momentous year for JC are occupied by his first visit to Poland for 16 years, and the later by a traumatic expedition to the Congo that subsequently demands expression in ‘’: according to Edward Garnett’s later opinion, the Congo episode formed the ‘turning- point in his mental life’, shaped ‘his transformation from a sailor to a writer’ and ‘swept away the generous illusions of his youth’ (Letters from Conrad, 1895– 1924 [1928], p. xii). On 16 January, prior to his departure for Poland, JC arranges to visit a distant cousin in the Ixelles municipality of Brussels, Aleksandr Poradowski. On arrival there on 5 February, he finds Poradowski terminally ill (he dies on the 7th) and forms a sym- pathetic bond with the widowed Marguerite Poradowska, whom he refers to as ‘Aunt’. Aged 42 at the time of their meeting, this handsome and cultivated woman, already a published author with influential connections in Brussels and Paris, will become JC’s early intimée and mentor, for whom he soon develops a ‘deep attachment’ 20 A Conrad Chronology

(to Poradowska: CL, I, 48). Before leaving Brussels, he has a further interview with Thys at the Society’s rue Brederode headquarters, also meeting the Secretary- General A. J. Wauters, and then departs for Poland carrying the existing manuscript of Almayer’s Folly and a copy of Poradowska’s novel, Yaga (1888). Travelling to Poland via Berlin (where he nearly leaves the manu- script of Almayer’s Folly in a Friedrichstrasse café), Warsaw and , he arrives at his uncle’s estate on 16 February. After a ten- week stay – during which he begins ch. 5 of Almayer’s Folly – he leaves on 18 April and arrives back in Brussels on or by 29 April to find that, thanks to Poradowska’s efforts on his behalf, his three- year appointment to the Congo is confirmed. At the company’s offices he is requested to make speedy passage to Africa, there to take com- mand of the Floride, whose previous captain, Johannes Freiesleben, has been murdered by tribesmen. He rushes back to London, returns to Brussels on 6 May and signs a contract. Four days later, again with Almayer’s Folly in his baggage, he departs from Bordeaux in the SS Ville de Maceio, a ship carrying French troops, company personnel, and the rails and sleepers used to construct the first railway in the Congo. (12 June) Following a route via ports- of- call in Tenerife, Senegal, French Guinea, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone, JC disembarks at Boma, seat of government for the Congo. (13 June) A first entry in JC’s ‘Congo Diary’ (LE), a journal written in English and kept during the first months of his stay, indicates that he has made the short journey from Boma to Matadi. Here, he has his first taste of Belgian officialdom in the Congo in the figure of the unsympathetic station- manager, Joseph- Louis- Hubert Gosse, who offers no reason for detaining JC there for a fortnight. The manager presides over a small society where the prominent characteristic is that of ‘People speaking ill of each other’ (CD, p. 123). Although JC determines to keep his own company, he finds at least one friend in the ‘intelligent and very sympathetic’ , at this time working for the Compagnie du Chemin de fer du Congo as a supervi- sor of the railway construction (CD, p. 123). (24 June) Waiting to begin his up- river journey, JC is ‘busy packing ivory in casks. Idiotic employment’ (CD, p. 123). (28 June) With Prosper Harou (a Belgian agent who will fall ill on the trek and need to be stretchered) and a caravan of over 30 carri- ers, he leaves Matadi by overland route for Kinshasa on Stanley Pool, 1890 21 where the River Congo becomes navigable. The gruelling trek of 230 miles will occupy the whole of July. (4 July) Encounters a ‘dead body lying by the path in an attitude of meditative repose’ (CD, p. 126). (5 July) ‘Getting jolly well sick of this fun,’ comments JC, oppressed by mosquitoes, mud and fatigue (CD, p. 126). (8 July) Arrives in Manyanga, spending over a fortnight resting there until the trek resumes on the 25th. (29 July) ‘On the road today passed a skeleton tied up to a post. Also white man’s grave – no name’ (CD, p. 131). (1 Aug) ‘Glad to see the end of this stupid tramp,’ comments JC, under stress and growingly disillusioned (CD, p. 134). (2 Aug) Arrives at Kinshasa, upon which the Central Station in ‘Heart of Darkness’ is later based, to find that the Floride, his antici- pated command, has been wrecked on 18 July. Here JC probably quarrels with the company’s manager, Camille Delcommune, and already considers breaking his contract and resigning. From Stanley Pool, a letter of 3 August to Bobrowski apparently voices JC’s ‘deep resentment towards the Belgians for exploiting ... [him] so mercilessly’ (CPB, p. 133). (3 Aug) Allowed no rest period, JC departs in the Roi des Belges, under the command of Captain Ludvig Koch, for Stanley Falls, serving first as supernumerary and then as temporary master. Delcommune is also on board for the 1, 000- mile trip, apparently undertaken to aid the disabled company steamer, the Ville de Bruxelles. JC immediately starts the ‘Up- river Book’, a navigational guide, with maps and sketches, made during his 28- day up- river passage on the River Congo. (1 Sept) Roi des Belges arrives at Stanley Falls, where JC is ill with dysentery. (6 Sept) When the captain of the Roi des Belges falls sick, JC takes over command for part of her return trip, which begins on or by the 8th. Also taken on board is a sick French company- agent, Georges- Antoine Klein, who dies on the 21st and is buried at Chumbiri. Klein’s surname appears on four occasions in the manuscript of ‘Heart of Darkness’, being replaced later by that of ‘Kurtz’. (15 Sept) Captain Koch is well enough to relieve JC of his temporary command. (24 Sept) JC arrives back in Kinshasa, now anticipating that he may join a longer expedition and perhaps still hoping for a command. 22 A Conrad Chronology

(26 Sept) A change in the company’s plans sends him to Bamou, where he falls seriously ill. Before leaving Kinshasa, a weakened and demoralized JC writes to Poradowska, telling her of his deteriorat- ing relations with Delcommune (‘a common ivory dealer with base instincts who ... is only a kind of African shop- keeper’) and of how ‘repellent’ everything is (CL, I, 62); he asks her to help him effect a release from his contract and to secure him a post on one of the com- pany’s other ships. (Oct– Dec) Existing evidence allows only glimpses of JC’s progress over the next three months, though the period covers his slow jour- ney, partly by canoe, back to the coast and coincides with a bout of severe – much later, Jessie remembers being told ‘how nearly he had died from dysentery while being carried to the coast when he left the Congo’ (JCC, p. 13). From Kinshasa, JC writes to Bobrowski on 19 October, complaining of recent illnesses and making clear his intention to return to Europe as soon as possible. On the 22nd he is ill with dysentery and fever in Fumemba and on the 27th heads for Manyanga, where he conceivably tries to convalesce. After a six- week journey to the coast (and a six- month stay in the country), he reaches Matadi on 16 November and on 4 December begins his return- journey to Europe.

1891 Still severely ill, JC returns to Europe, arriving in Brussels in late January (where he spends two days with Poradowska) and in London by 1 February. Despite ill health, he looks for employment: on his behalf, Poradowska approaches Victor Pécher, head of an Antwerp shipping company, while in mid- February he goes to Scotland, pre- sumably in pursuit of work. During most of March he is confined to the German Hospital, Dalston, suffering from malaria, rheumatism and neuralgia. His uncle offers funds and advice from afar – and in late July warns his nephew about the dangers of flirting with Poradowska. After several months of extreme physical and nervous disorder (he complains of recurrent palpitations and attacks of breathless- ness), JC departs on 17 May for convalescence and hydrotherapy in the suburb of Champel- les- Bains, Switzerland, probably breaking his journey in Paris. He arrives at the Hôtel de la Roseraie 1892 23 in Champel on 21 May and, while there, manages to work on ch. 7 of Almayer’s Folly. He leaves on 14 June, meets Poradowska at the Paris office of her cousin on the 15th, and arrives home on the following day. During the summer he makes two trips along the in Hope’s yawl, the , probably accompanied by Hope’s friends, Edward Gardner Mears (a meat merchandiser) and William Brock Keen (a chartered accountant) – trips that seem to be recalled in the opening scene aboard the Nellie in ‘Heart of Darkness’. Sometime before September, JC moves to new lodgings at 17 Gillingham Street, near Victoria Station, his London base until March 1896. At the end of July, illness prevents him from starting a temporary job as manager in the Barr, Moering warehouse in Upper Thames Street. He begins work there on 4 August, possibly also being employed as a translator for a New Oxford Street agency at this time, a period when he is remembered as calling at the office of the St Stephen’s Review to offer the editor ‘some of Polish short stories’ (MDF, p. 168). An early literary exercise, ‘The Princess and the Page: A True Fairy Tale for Grown- up Princesses’ (a possible translation from an original French fairy tale) may belong to this period; later, JC presents the manuscript of the tale to Edward Garnett, probably in the autumn of 1896. In an effort to dispel the feeling that he is ‘vegetating’ (to Poradowska: CL, I, 98), he signs on as first mate under Captain W. H. Cope in the (19 Nov), which sails from London on the next day. This celebrated vessel, one of the fastest sailing ships of her time, is memorialized by JC years later in ‘The Torrens: A Personal Tribute’ (LE). On the outward journey, he befriends a passenger, Walter Banks, a civil engineer originally from Lancashire, whom he meets fairly regularly in London during the period 1893– 94. On 3 December, JC is 34.

1892 After four months at sea, the Torrens arrives in Adelaide on 28 February. During a six- week stay there, JC rereads Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1857) with ‘respectful admiration’ (to Poradowska: CL, I, 111). On 8 April the Torrens leaves for England via ( 18– 28 June) and St Helena ( 14– 18 Aug), arriving in London after a five- month passage on 2 September, with JC signing off next day. 24 A Conrad Chronology

Six weeks later JC, again as first mate under Captain Cope, joins the Torrens for another Australian voyage, departing from London on 25 October. On the outward journey the still- unfinished manuscript of Almayer’s Folly has its first reader in W. H. Jacques, a passenger and recent Cambridge graduate, who finds it ‘distinctly’ worth fin- ishing and leaves JC feeling ‘as if already the story- teller were being born into the body of a seaman’ (A Personal Record, p. 17). JC also befriends E. B. Redmayne, a cotton manufacturer from Preston, and his family, with whom he will keep in touch during the mid- 1890s and who will be among his first English readers. Israel Zangwill’s The Premier and the Painter (1888) is probably among the books JC reads during these long and uneventful voyages, while with Jacques he discusses Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ( 1776– 88). (3 Dec) JC’s 35th birthday.

1893 During the last fortnight of the voyage, JC is ill and, soon after the ship’s arrival in Adelaide on 2 February, takes a week’s sick- leave. While in port, he reads Poradowska’s Popes et popadias, published in Revue des Deux Mondes at the end of the previous year. The ship departs for England on 23 March via Cape Town (16– 21 May) and St Helena (7– 12 July). On the passage home, JC meets two cultured English passengers, John Galsworthy (the future novelist) and E. L. (‘Ted’) Sanderson (the future headmaster of Elstree School), both ex- graduates in their mid- twenties, who have been travelling in Australia and then the South Seas in quest of Robert Louis Stevenson: they have missed Stevenson, but now, by a happy accident, find a new friend in JC. In a letter to his mother from the Torrens, Sanderson describes JC (who soon comes to be the object of his hero- worship) as ‘the only interesting person on board’ and adds: ‘He is a Polish exile, intensely cultivated and artistic; and his sympathies are as wide as his reading’ (unpublished). Galsworthy disembarks in Cape Town, while Sanderson remains on board for London. Fascinated by the first mate’s history, both men will become his lifelong friends: JC will soon visit Sanderson’s large and bustling home at Elstree School (where his father is the 1893 25 present headmaster) and accompany Galsworthy to see Bizet’s Carmen at Covent Garden, an opera that JC has already enjoyed 14 times. Meanwhile, a total voyage of nine months ends when the Torrens arrives in London on 27 July. A thinly disguised version of this homeward voyage will appear in Galsworthy’s early story, ‘The Doldrums’ (From the Four Winds, 1897), which turns upon an actual on- board event, the death of the ship’s doctor, Charles Granville Jackson, after which JC may have had to take over medical duties. In the first half of August, JC travels via Berlin and Warsaw to Ukraine to visit his uncle (who will die within the next six months), returning home on 12 October. Back in London and out of work, on 5 November JC complains of ‘disheartening indolence’ (to Poradowska: CL, I, 131). He can often be found at the London Shipmasters’ Society office in Fenchurch Street among the com- pany gathered around its secretary Captain Albert Froud, though also spends time with the Sandersons at Elstree ( 14– 20 Oct), and in the same month proposes a visit to see Redmayne in Lancashire. According to one account by JC’s future wife Jessie, she and JC first meet in late 1893 (introduced by Hope) and, after a year’s break, see each other more regularly in 1894. (25 Nov) Looks forward to meeting Walter Banks in London for a game of chess. In the evening, he lodges aboard the SS Adowa, where he has secured a berth as second mate in what will turn out to be the final ship of his sea- career. Captained by Captain Frederick Paton and chartered by the Franco- Canadian Transport Company to carry French emigrants from Rouen to Halifax in Canada, the ship leaves on the 26th. (3 Dec) JC’s 36th birthday. (4 Dec) On arrival in Rouen, the Adowa remains in harbour idle for the next five weeks when the company’s plans do not materialize. According to A Personal Record, much of ch. 10 of Almayer’s Folly is written during this period of enforced inactivity, with JC later indulg- ing the fancy that the shade of Flaubert – who was born in Rouen – watches over him. He also occupies his time reading Daudet’s Jack (1892) and translations of Tennyson’s poems in a Warsaw review. Looking ahead, he professes to be taking steps to attain ‘a position in the pearl fisheries off the Australian coast’ (to Poradowska: CL, I, 137). 26 A Conrad Chronology

The Writer (1894– 1924)

1894 January 10 (Wed) Leaves Rouen, arriving home on the 12th. 17 Unbeknown to him, his signing off marks the end of his profes- sional sea career, at the age of 36. 20 Tells Poradowska that he has been reading her Le Mariage du fils Grandsire (1894) ‘with delight’ (CL, I, 145).

February 10 (Sat) JC’s uncle Bobrowski dies. 15 A bomb ‘outrage’ aimed at the Greenwich Observatory takes place, leading to the death of its perpetrator Martial Bourdin – events later to be recalled during the germination of . 18 Ill for several days, JC has now received news of his uncle’s death and feels ‘as if everything has died’ in him (to Poradowska, CL, I, 148); he inherits 15,000 roubles (or £120) to be paid one year after his uncle’s death.

March Afflicted by his enforced idleness, JC looks for a job and continues with Almayer’s Folly. In mid- March, he takes the manuscript of the first ten chapters with him when he visits Poradowska in Brussels. On this visit, JC attends (probably with his ‘aunt’) the first Belgian production of Wagner’s Tristran and Isolde (1865). Back in London at the end of the month, he works intensively on ch. 11 of the novel, begrudging ‘each minute ... [he] spend[s] away from the page’ (to Poradowska: CL, I, 151).

April 10 (Tues) Makes a final drive on Almayer’s Folly while staying for the next ten days at Elstree with the Sanderson family, some of whom read his manuscript and provide practical help and encouragement as he completes ch. 11 and presses on with ch. 12. The large, animated Elstree group (there are 13 children in the family) is fascinated by JC’s picturesque yarns, delivered in mark- edly broken English; the lively gatherings hosted by Ted’s mother 1894 27

Katherine, often include Galsworthy as well as notable teachers and academics from Eton, Harrow and Cambridge, including Lionel Ford, assistant master at Eton, whom JC visits later in the year. JC returns home on the 20th. 24 ‘It’s finished!’ he exclaims jubilantly of the first draft of Almayer’s Folly (to Poradowska: CL, I, 153), which he goes on to revise in late April and early May.

May– June Revision of Almayer’s Folly completed, he informs Poradowska on 17 May that the manuscript is now in the hands of the influential man- of- letters Edmund Gosse, adding that an anticipated chance of command has come to nothing. Most of June is spent patiently ‘awaiting regular work’ (to Poradowska: CL, I, 159). About this time, he reads Lanoe Falconer’s Madamoiselle Ixe (1891) and I. N. Potapenko’s The General’s Daughter (1892) – two novels in T. Fisher Unwin’s ‘Pseudonym Library’ that give him the idea of approaching Unwin as a promising publisher for his first novel.

July 4 (Wed) Delivers Almayer’s Folly, under the pseudonym ‘Kamudi’ (cf. Malay kemudi = ‘rudder’), to Fisher Unwin’s Paternoster Square office. There follows a period of illness and enervation extending into August. 30 Still ill after ten days in bed and dispirited by Unwin’s silence, JC proposes to Poradowska that Almayer’s Folly should ‘appear not as a translation but as a collaboration’ with her in France (CL, I, 165). 31 Gives evidence at a Board of Trade inquiry into the manning of British Merchant ships.

August 8 (Wed) Lonely and in poor health, he returns to Switzerland for hydrotherapy, again staying at the Hôtel de la Roseraie, in Champel. 18? In better health, informs Poradowska that he has requested Unwin to return his manuscript and repeats his proposal that she should translate Almayer’s Folly into French with her name on the title- page. He is at present avidly reading – Maupassant fills him with delight, while ’s Le Lys rouge (1894) leaves him 28 A Conrad Chronology

totally unmoved. Has begun a short story with a Malay setting, ‘Two Vagabonds’, which later evolves into An Outcast; in connec- tion with his new story, he jokes with Poradowska: ‘You see how Malays cling to me! I am devoted to Borneo’ (CL, I, 171).

September 6 (Thurs) Leaves Champel. In London two days later, he will look for suitable work; also writes to Unwin to enquire about the fate of Almayer’s Folly; meanwhile An Outcast lies dormant. 8 Recent reading has probably included Émile Zola’s Lourdes (1894).

October 2 (Tues) Again attempts to obtain a command. 4 Learns that Almayer’s Folly has been accepted by Unwin, who tells JC that he would like to see any shorter work that he has written. 8 Meets Unwin at his office and agrees to accept a sum of £20 plus French rights. The first professional reader of Almayer’s Folly, W. H. Chesson, is also present. On the same occasion (or soon after at the National Liberal Club) JC meets Edward Garnett, senior reader at Unwin’s, who will become his early mentor and lifelong friend. ‘I had never seen before a man so masculinely keen yet so femininely sensitive,’ recalls Garnett; less happily, he goes on to promulgate the myth, partly supported later by JC, that An Outcast owed its entire existence to his upon JC at this first meet- ing to ‘write another’ (Letters from Conrad 1895– 1924, p. vii) – in fact, JC has begun An Outcast fully two months before this meeting. 10 JC returns the manuscript of Almayer’s Folly to Unwin after read- ing it through for three days; he describes his new literary profes- sion as ‘Slave trade!’ (to Poradowska: CL, I, 180). 29 (or 5 Nov) While negotiating a possible return to sea with a firm, JC has also been studying Maupassant’s Pierre et Jean (1888), the technical sophistication of which fills him ‘with the pro- foundest despair’ and leaves him fearful that he is ‘too much under the influence of Maupassant’. Meanwhile, work on An Outcast is held up at the beginning of ch. 4 (to Poradowska: CL, I, 184– 5). 30 In the morning, has an interview with Unwin; a planned depar- ture on a business trip to Antwerp and Paris in the afternoon does not materialize. 1895 29

November 14 (or 21) (Wed) Making little progress on An Outcast, he looks forward to escaping from shore- life in London and getting back to sea. 26 (or 3 Dec) Reports that he has been ‘absolutely bogged down’ with An Outcast for the last fortnight (to Poradowska: CL, I, 189).

According to Jessie, she and JC renew contact about this time, when JC turns up unexpectedly and takes Jessie and her mother out to dine, the first of several such ‘jaunts’ (JCC, p. 11).

December 3 (Mon) JC’s 37th birthday. 6 (or 13) Still makes desperately slow progress on An Outcast – ‘I agonize with pen in hand. Six lines in six days’ (to Poradowska: CL, I, 191). 24 Receives proofs of Almayer’s Folly. 27 Eight chapters of An Outcast completed, JC now decides upon its final title. 1895 January 5 (Sat) Sends his first critical to Garnett – a preface to Almayer’s Folly, probably written a few days earlier but not published until 1920 in the Doubleday Sun- Dial Edition. This preface challenges opinions on the supposed ‘inferiority’ of non- European peoples expressed by Alice Meynell in ‘Decivilised’, an essay from her The Rhythm of Life (1893). 16 Garnett pays a first visit to JC’s Gillingham Street lodgings; JC has read the former’s An Imaged World: Poems in Prose (1894). About this time Garnett introduces him to the writer E. V. Lucas at the Restaurant d’Italie. 30 (or 6 Feb) Ten chapters of An Outcast now written.

February 22? (Fri) Returns from visiting the Hopes in Stanford where he has been unwell; illness has prevented him from making a trip to Newfoundland, probably connected with a plan to invest his inheritance. 30 A Conrad Chronology

23? Contemplates sending a copy of Almayer’s Folly to as an act of homage, confessing to a long- standing ‘Daudet worship’ (to Poradowska: CL, I, 202). While working on An Outcast, reads the serial version of Poradowska’s Marylka (1896).

March 7 (Thurs) A meeting with Garnett, who is reading parts of An Outcast, cheers him up. c.8 Leaves for a stay with Poradowska in Brussels, where he pursues his efforts to get Almayer’s Folly translated for a French audi- ence. 15 Returns home to find an appreciative letter from Garnett about An Outcast. c.23 Stays with the Sandersons at Elstree for ten days, where he continues composition of An Outcast, but with four of the days spent in bed with illness. Arrives home by 2 April.

April 2 (Tues) Inscribes advance copies of Almayer’s Folly for Poradowska and Jessie. 12 Works on ch. 17 of An Outcast. 29 Publication of Almayer’s Folly by Unwin (in America by Macmillan, 3 May; unserialized), dedicated to the memory of Bobrowski. 30 Sees Unwin and broaches the possibility of a Polish translation of Almayer’s Folly; Unwin tells him that W. E. Henley, editor of the New Review, has not reacted favourably to his first novel.

May 1 (Wed) Leaves for Champel, Switzerland, to seek relief from ‘attacks of melancholy’ and to press on with An Outcast (to Poradowska: CL, I, 211). As on his previous trip, he stays at the Hôtel de la Roseraie.

Soon feeling better and encouraged by the first reviews of Almayer’s Folly, JC forms a romantic attachment with a 20- year- old Frenchwoman who is holidaying at the same hotel with her rich, cultured bourgeois family. He and Émilie Briquel spend much time together during the coming month, playing billiards and croquet, taking boat- trips on 1895 31

Lake Leman and discussing music and authors (Hugo, Daudet and Loti). On the 20th, JC presents Émilie with a copy of Almayer’s Folly inscribed to one ‘whose charming musical gift and everbright pres- ence has cheered for him the dull life of Champel’, and she will proceed to translate the novel into French. So attentive is JC to her that the Briquel family appear to expect a proposal of marriage from a suitor whom they take to be an Englishman. According to Jessie, she receives letters from JC during his Champel stay and a visit from him on his return.

15 From Champel, writes to the Assistant Editor of the Daily Chronicle, thanking him for the review of Almayer’s Folly carried in the newspaper on the 11th (CR, I, 18– 19). 25 JC has read Poradowska’s sketch of ‘Lemberg’ in Le Figaro of 27 April. 26 Makes a first intervention in the process of marketing his fiction when he urges Unwin not to advertise him as a writer of the ‘Pacific’. He adds, ‘Also why cry on the roofs that I am a seaman? It gives a false impression’ (CL, IX, 17). 30 Departs for England, travelling via Paris, where he sees Poradowska.

June 4 (Tues) Visits Unwin on his return to London, dining at his home on the 6th. 11 JC’s last extant letter to Poradowska for five years (until April 1900). (Various questions arise about this mysteriously abrupt gap in JC’s letters to her, a period during which they are certainly known to have corresponded. Have the letters been lost or were they suppressed or destroyed by her? Baines [p. 171] boldly con- jectures that JC had proposed marriage to Poradowska and been refused, concluding that he may well have turned to Jessie ‘on the rebound’.) 15 In an unsigned review in the Saturday Review, H. G. Wells pre- dicts that Almayer’s Folly, an ‘exceedingly well imagined and well written’ novel, will secure JC a ‘high place among contemporary story- tellers’ (CR, I, 40). 19 JC again dines at the Unwins. 32 A Conrad Chronology

July 9 (Tues) While staying with the Sandersons in Elstree, receives a letter from Harriet Capes, an author of children’s books, who will become a lifelong admirer of JC and friend of the family. 14 Now works on ch. 23 of An Outcast and wishes to consult Garnett. 24 Begins a yachting cruise in Hope’s Ildegonde in the North Sea, sail- ing as far as the Dutch coast. Unwin is also invited but declines.

August 7 (Wed) The cruise ends. According to JC, he then makes three trips to Paris during the next fortnight on a business venture on behalf of Hope’s brother- in- law, arriving back on the 21st. For his pains, he receives expenses and 200 shares in a South African gold- mining company. 23 Dines with Unwin, who now contracts to publish An Outcast. 26 Contemplates a return to sea as an owner- captain for two or three years.

September 17 (Tues) After a year of composition, An Outcast is finished and deposited with Unwin the next day for Garnett to see. 24 Responds to Garnett’s criticisms of the final two chapters of An Outcast, promising to follow his advice and make some cuts, and looks forward to a meeting on the 27th.

October– December One of the shadowiest periods of JC’s life now begins (until the end of February 1896). Little is known of his personal affairs in the months prior to his marriage to Jessie next March, outside of the account offered in her sketchy and unreliable memoirs. During October, JC revises proofs of An Outcast, finishing by the 28th. On the 19th, a Spectator review of Almayer’s Folly refers to JC as ‘the Kipling of the Malay Archipelago’ (CR, I, 47). In a letter to Émilie Briquel of 14 November he writes of a recent visit to Unwin’s office to see a first copy of An Outcast and discloses that he is involved in a lawsuit. Advises an ex- seaman Edward Noble on his first literary venture and (on the 28 November) asks Garnett to consider Noble’s work for publication. Later in the year he probably begins The Sisters 1896 33

(unfinished [CDOUP]). On 3 December, JC is 38. A mid- December letter mentions that he may spend the Christmas holiday with his ‘aunt’ in Paris, leaving on the 22nd. The year ends with JC’s last cor- respondence with Émilie Briquel, who by next February will also be engaged to be married.

1896 January– February According to Jessie (JCC, pp. 12– 15), JC proposes marriage six weeks before the late- March wedding. The proposal takes place on the steps of London’s National Gallery and is finalized a few days later when JC presses for a speedy wedding, urging that ‘he hadn’t very long to live and that there would be no family’. If Jessie’s dating is reliable, this unusual proposal occurred about 10 February. Probably during the period 18– 22 February, JC, Jessie and Hope make a trip to Grangemouth, Scotland, to view a wooden barque, the Windermere, in which JC contemplates buying a part- share; on 23 February, he reports that he has ‘been trying to get a command of some offering to invest £500 for that purpose’ (to Redmayne: CL, IX, 23). During this month JC meets with Garnett, who has also been making attempts to find him a command and may have warned him against committing himself to marriage too impulsively.

25 (Feb., Tues) JC meets Garnett’s wife Constance for the first time. 27 Inscribes an advance copy of An Outcast for Jessie: ‘To Chiquita from the author.’

March 4 (Wed) An Outcast published by Unwin (by Appleton in America, 15 Aug; unserialized), dedicated to his friend Sanderson. 10 Writes to Zagórski that his recent refusal of a command means that the ‘literary profession is therefore ... [his] sole means of support’; he nevertheless feels ‘fairly confident about the future’ (CL, I, 266). 16 Introduces Jessie to the Garnetts at their home, the Cearne, in Limpsfield (Surrey). 23 At Garnett’s suggestion, he is now ready to abandon The Sisters in favour of a new project, The Rescuer (later The Rescue), an ill- fated work that will cause his first major creative crisis, until he sets it 34 A Conrad Chronology

aside in early 1899. He intermittently returns to the novel – or plans to do so – for many years, but does not finally finish it until 1919. 24 JC and Jessie George are married at the St George Hanover Square Registry Office with Hope, Krieger and Jessie’s mother as witnesses. Modest afternoon celebrations follow in ‘a little café in Victoria’ and in the evening at Overton’s Restaurant, near Victoria Station (JCC, p.19). 25 After spending the night at Gillingham Sreet, the Conrads leave for a six- month visit to Brittany via Southampton and St Malo, staying overnight in St Malo before proceeding (on the 27th) to the Hôtel de France in the port- town of Lannion.

April 6 (Mon) Reads the first of the mixed reviews of An Outcast. Announces that he has drafted 11 pages of The Rescue. 9 Jessie having recovered from illness, the Conrads move to a house on Île- Grande owned by Jeanne- Marie and Vincent Coadou- Brinter, and meet the local residents, who are charac- terized as ‘dirty and delightful and very Catholic’ (to Garnett: CL, I, 272). 13 Sends the first chapter of The Rescue to Garnett, who praises it warmly. 22 Asks Unwin to send him a Malay dictionary for his work on The Rescue (‘I find I’ve forgotten many words’ [CL, I, 276]). JC’s pub- lisher sends him Frank Athelstane Swettenham’s Vocabulary of the English and Malay Languages, with Notes, 2 vols (1881).

May 5 (Tues) The first overseas translation of a JC work (Almayer’s Folly) begins as a serial in an Amsterdam daily Het Nieuws van den Dag [‘The Daily News’], running until 13 June. 16 An anonymous notice of An Outcast in the Saturday Review laments JC’s excesses of style but judges the novel to be ‘perhaps, the finest piece of fiction that has been published this year, as Almayer’s Folly was one of the finest ... published in 1895’ (CR, I, 112). 18 JC writes to the anonymous reviewer, who turns out to be H. G. Wells, soon to be a friend and near- neighbour when JC returns to England. 1896 35

22 Setting aside The Rescue, JC has written ‘’, a short story set in Brittany and drawing upon features of the Conrads’ imme- diate locality, by this date finished and sent off (Savoy, Oct [TU]). The works of Rabelais appear to divert him at this time. 25 Has read Wells’s The Time Machine, The Wonderful Visit and The Stolen Bacillus (all 1895), now looking forward to reading The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896). 27 The publisher William Blackwood responds positively to the urg- ing of his literary editor (David S. Meldrum) that he should take steps to secure JC’s work for the firm. 28 JC privately defends himself against Wells’s criticisms: ‘I will never disguise it [my style] in boots of Wells’ (or anybody else’s) making. It would be utter folly. I shall make my own boots or perish’ (to Unwin: CL, IX, 32).

June 2 (Tues) Slowed up by fits of depression, a miserable JC struggles to finish Part I of The Rescue, its opening chapter having been seen by Garnett. 10 Part I now finished and sent to Garnett, JC probably begins The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’, his first sea story, as a short tale destined for a planned volume of shorter pieces; the story is soon to be laid aside. 12 Recovers from a recent fortnight of illness, perhaps the bout of malarial fever described by Jessie in JCC, pp. 26– 7. 17 According to Jessie (JCC, pp. 27– 31), the failure of JC’s South African gold investments finally occurs on this day, when a director of the gold mine is lost at sea in the sinking of the Drummond Castle. On 22 July, JC will inform Garnett: ‘A man I love much [Hope] has been very unfortunate in affairs and I also lose pretty well all that remained’ (CL, I, 292). 19 Feeling better after a three- day cruise in a hired boat, La Pervenche, JC returns to the ‘fine torture’ of composing The Rescue (to Garnett: CL, I, 288).

July 3 (Fri) By this date, Minnie Brooke, a friend of the Unwins has vis- ited, and JC has met a local poet, possibly Charles le Goffic, with whom he exchanges volumes. 36 A Conrad Chronology

10 Asks Garnett to send the manuscript of The Rescue to Hope, who will check its nautical terms. 22 Written during July, ‘’, JC’s first African story, is now finished (Cosmopolis, June– July 1897 [TU]) and sent to Garnett.

August 5 (Wed) JC’s paralysing frustration with his ‘ghastly’ novel reaches its first climax when, in a ‘little hell’ of his own, he complains to Garnett of ‘breaking up mentally’ (CL, I, 295, 296). 9 Has written ‘’, completed by this date (Cornhill, Jan 1897 [TU]), as further relief from The Rescue. The German pub- lisher Tauchnitz takes up An Outcast for inclusion in its series, the Collection of British Authors – further evidence of growing interest abroad in JC’s work. 14 Now temporarily abandons The Rescue and lays it aside for a year. 22 Recent reading includes By and Palm (1894) by Louis Becke and A First Fleet Family (1896) by Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery.

September c.4 (Fri) Poor weather in Brittany prompts the Conrads to cut short their six- month stay and return home, with JC making arrange- ments to see Unwin in London on the 7th. Thereafter he divides his time between his Gillingham Street lodgings and Stanford- le- Hope, where he and Jessie can stay with their friends the Hopes until their new Stanford home – a semi- detached villa in Victoria Road – becomes available in late September or early October. While Jessie and her mother prepare the new house, JC spends much of his time in London, where he corrects proofs of ‘The Lagoon’. 23 Leaves his London lodgings to make Stanford his permanent married home.

October 16 (Fri) Dissatisfied with Unwin’s terms for The Nigger, JC surveys alternative publishers. 19 Having now returned to The Nigger, plans to submit it to W. E. Henley for serialization in the New Review. 27 Makes a first contact with Henry James when he sends him a copy of An Outcast, with an effusive and grandiloquent letter. 1896 37

28 (and 2 Nov) JC responds to separate letters from his friend Sanderson and Helen Watson, who have just become engaged after a whirlwind , assuring them of their suitability for each other as a married couple. 30 Garnett arranges for JC to meet representatives from Longman and Heinemann (as well as Lucas) at a business dinner, probably to settle on publication rights for The Nigger. There now begins a period when JC, guided by Garnett, is directly involved in the literary market- place.

November 1 (Sun) Garnett has also arranged for him to meet A. P. Watt, the literary agent, though nothing comes of this meeting. 6 On this and the following two Fridays, JC is in London trying to negotiate a long- term contract with Smith, Elder for The Rescue, The Nigger and other short stories, though terms cannot finally be agreed. Before his last interview with Smith (on the 20th), JC sounds out Unwin again and then, over lunch with Garnett in Soho, confirms his plan to have a sample of The Nigger shown to W. E. Henley. 14 Has read Sanderson’s manuscript poem ‘An Episode of Southern Seas’, though JC’s cursory expression of admiration leads Sanderson to feel that his friend does not like his work; a week later, JC redeems the situation with apologies and further encour- agement. 29 Sends additional copy of The Nigger to Garnett, asking him to forward it via S. S. Pawling (of Heinemann’s) to Henley.

December 3 (Thurs) JC’s 39th birthday. 4 Lunches with Garnett at the Anglo- American Restaurant, New Bond Street, bringing a further batch of The Nigger to show him. 6 Casement has renewed contact by letter and probably meets JC next spring in London. 7 Garnett arranges for JC to meet Pawling at the Restaurant d’Italie in Soho during the coming week and then to stay the night at the with Garnett’s parents. 13 Now assured of having ‘conquered’ Henley, JC presses on pur- posefully with The Nigger. 38 A Conrad Chronology

22 The Conrads leave to spend Christmas with the Spiridions in Cathedral Road, Cardiff for ten days. On this occasion, Józef, a Polish patriot, provokes JC by suggesting that he should devote his talent to the cause of unhappy Poland, to which JC is said to have heatedly responded: ‘Ah, mon ami, que voulez- vous. I would lose my public . . .’ (CUFE, p. 175). While in Cardiff, JC gives his first interview, published under the title of ‘A New Novellist [sic] on Dickens’ in the Cardiff Western Mail of 1 January 1897; he also visits the city library on the 30th.

1897 January 1 (Fri) On arrival home, returns to intensive work on The Nigger, which has now been formally accepted by Henley for the New Review. 2 The first Polish translation of a JC work (An Outcast) begins as a serial in a Warsaw weekly, Tygodnik Romansów i Powie´sci [‘The Weekly of Romances and Novels’]. 7 The death of James Wait in the story now behind him, JC pre- pares for his final drive. 17 Finishes The Nigger (New Review, Aug– Dec), followed by two days in bed. Revision of the manuscript continues into February. 19 Reads the manuscript of Garnett’s London sketches (never published). 21 Jessie is laid up with neuralgia, the first of her many health prob- lems to come. 24 Galsworthy pays a visit to Stanford.

February 7 (Sun) Having returned the corrected proofs of ‘An Outpost of Progress’, JC now meditates on a new short story, ‘Karain: A Memory’, while The Rescue ‘sleeps yet the sleep like of death’ (to Garnett: CL, I, 338). 13 Receives an inscribed copy of The Spoils of Poynton (1897) from James. Sends Garnett a portion of ‘Karain’ manuscript, followed by another one on the 28th. 18 Meets Garnett at the Mecca Tavern near Fenchurch Street, hand- ing over the manuscript of Galsworthy’s apprentice work From the Four Winds (1897). 1897 39

25 JC and James meet for the first time, lunching at London’s Reform Club, with JC also meeting the drama critic there.

March 5 (Fri) The Conrads attend a function at the Garnetts’. 10 Has begun rewriting large portions of ‘Karain’ as a result of Garnett’s criticisms. 13 The Conrads move to Ivy Walls Farm, an Elizabethan house on the outskirts of Stanford- le- Hope (until Oct 1898). JC is now enrolled as a member of the London Library. 24 The Conrads celebrate their first wedding anniversary. 26 Galsworthy has visited recently to announce publication by Unwin of his maiden volume, written under the pseudonym ‘John Sinjohn’.

April 5 (Mon) Asks Józef Spiridion for a £20 loan until June. 14 After much rewriting, ‘Karain’ is now finished and sent off to Unwin, who is requested to send it to Garnett for a final viewing (Blackwood’s, Nov [TU]).

JC soon turns to a new story, ‘The Return’, whose progress is initially delayed by work on The Nigger proof revisions and Jessie’s illness. His prolonged difficulties with the new story serve to sour the next five months.

May 2 (Sun) Galsworthy visits for an overnight stay. 12 Sends proof sheets of The Nigger for Sanderson to read, Galsworthy having already seen them. 20 W. H. Chesson sends an inscribed copy of his A Great Lie (1897). 25 Meets Pawling in London to negotiate terms for The Rescue. 26 Receives a copy of Walter Pater’s Marius the Epicurean (1885) from Garnett.

June 2 (Wed) After nursing Jessie through a recent illness, JC takes up ‘The Return’ in earnest. 40 A Conrad Chronology

12 Pawling stays overnight at Ivy Walls and then accompanies JC and Hope on a sailing trip along the Thames to Sheerness in Hope’s yacht. Having read portions of The Rescue manu- script, he secures book rights for Heinemann. JC plans to read ’s translation of Turgenev’s Dream Tales and Prose Poems (1897). 13 Overnight visit by Wincenty Lutosławski, Polish philosopher and nationalist, whose unattractive and misleading account of JC and ‘The Emigration of Talent’ from Poland in Kraj (1899; reprinted in CUFE, pp. 178– 81), provokes further controversy in Polish circles (see April 1899). 20 Has just read Somerset Maugham’s Liza of Lambeth (1897). 22 Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. 28 By this date, JC has incurred a substantial debt to his friend Krieger, one that will dog him for several years and eventually sour their friendship.

July 17 (Sat) Blackwood accepts ‘Karain’ for magazine publication, marking the beginning of an important five- year publishing connection with JC, coinciding with the latter’s deteriorating relations with Unwin. 18 Promises to send Garnett (who has recently visited) a copy of Flaubert’s L’Éducation sentimentale (1870). 19 Jessie is now in the early stages of her first pregnancy. 26 Heinemann issues a contract for book publication of The Nigger. Various ailments hold up progress on ‘The Return’.

August 5 (Thurs) JC opens correspondence with R. B. Cunninghame Graham (‘Don Roberto’), who has previously written to praise ‘An Outpost of Progress’. 24 Sends the preface to The Nigger, perhaps written during a recent impasse with ‘The Return’, for Garnett to scrutinize. Describing the sea- story to Garnett as ‘Your book’, JC will soon decide to dedicate it to his mentor (CL, I, 375). 28 Garnett has returned the preface, with suggestions for cutting. (It is published after the story’s last instalment in the New Review but not included in the first book editions.) 1897 41

September 6 (Mon) Sends Part I of The Rescue (now given its final title) and a synopsis to Blackwood’s with a view to serialization. JC will soon begin another unproductive tussle with the novel. 24 After five months of tortured composition, ‘The Return’ is finally drafted (unserialized [TU]) and sent to Garnett for his comments; the story completes a volume of stories promised to Unwin. 28 Finishes revising ‘Karain’ proofs for its appearance in Blackwood’s. 29 Garnett’s criticisms of ‘The Return’ do not prevent JC from sending it off for publication, but they do persuade him that he has been over- ambitious: ‘There are things I must leave alone’ (CL, I, 387).

October 8 (Fri) Sees Pawling in London to expunge expletives from The Nigger: ‘Heinemann objects to the bloodys in the book’ (to Garnett: CL, I, 395). 11 Reacts adversely to E. L. Voynich’s The Gadfly (1897). The last of The Nigger proofs is out of JC’s hands. 14 Arranges with Garnett to meet the latter’s mother, Olivia (on the 22nd). 15 Meets for the first time, of whom the day previ- ously JC has written to Garnett: ‘I do admire him. I shan’t have to pretend’ (CL, I, 396). Introduced by Pawling, the two men lunch, are immediately attracted to each other, spend the rest of the day wandering around London and finally enjoy supper at Monico’s, where they discuss Honoré de Balzac’s La Comédie humaine. 26 Invites Garnett to lunch in London (on the 28th), telling him that he has ‘at last made a start with the Rescue’ (CL, I, 401).

November 1 (Mon) In London for three days, consults with Unwin and Pawling, also meeting David S. Meldrum for the first time at the Daniel Lambert Tavern, Ludgate Hill. 8 Posts to Unwin the finished copy of four stories for TU, with ‘The Return’ to follow later in the month. Sends Pawling an extended synopsis of The Rescue, probably destined for the American pub- lisher Scribner’s. 42 A Conrad Chronology

9 Inscribes a copy of Almayer’s Folly for Crane (JC has already sent him proof sheets of The Nigger.) 24 Still wrestles unproductively with The Rescue. Informs Blackwood that he has read the first two volumes of Margaret Oliphant’s Annals of a Publishing House: William Blackwood and his Sons (1897). 26 First meeting with Graham at the Devonshire Club, where they cement their friendship in ‘two languages’, English and French (to Sanderson: CL, I, 434). JC waxes enthusiastic about Robert Bridges’s poetry and Humphrey James’s Paddy’s Woman (1897). 28 Crane pays a first visit to Ivy Walls, when the two writers talk and smoke into the night. 30 The Nigger published in America by Dodd, Mead as The Children of the Sea: A Tale of the Forecastle (by Heinemann in Britain, 2 Dec). Sends a presentation copy to James.

December 1 (Wed) Admires Crane’s stories, especially ‘The Open Boat’ (1897). 3 JC’s 40th birthday. 5 The outstanding debt to Krieger causes a rift in their friendship, with JC being consoled by Hope every evening. 6 JC’s recent reading includes Stevenson’s Ballads (1895) and Constance Garnett’s translation of Turgenev’s The and Other Stories (1897). 8 thanks Wells for drawing his attention to JC’s works and enthuses about the style and artistry of The Nigger. 9 JC defends his literary aims in a letter to W. L. Courtney, whose recent Daily Telegraph review of The Nigger has described JC as an ‘unflinching realist’ who does not hesitate to give his story ‘the ugliest conceivable title’ (CR, I, 150). 17 Spends the day in London, but misses Garnett. 19 Thanks Unwin for a copy of Good Reading about Many Books, Mostly by their Authors (1897), an anthology of extracts from Unwin authors (excluding JC). 20 Has begun reading Gabriela Cunninghame Graham’s Santa Teresa (1894). 23 While pressing on with The Rescue, JC awaits a volume (possibly The Earthly Paradise [1896]) from Garnett and replies to an enthusiastic letter from A. T. Quiller- Couch about The Nigger: ‘Twenty years of life, six months of scribbling and a 1898 43

lot of fist- gnawing and hair tearing went to the making of that book,’ JC tells him; he adds that he hopes ‘to do for seamen what Millet ... has done for ’ (CL, I, 430– 1).

JC corrects and revises proofs of TU during this month. 1898 January In a letter to Garnett (7 Jan), JC begins the year with qualified opti- mism, basking in good reviews of The Nigger – the work by which he considers himself to have come of age as a writer – and resolving to finish Part II of The Rescue. This mood soon dissipates as he enters a year dominated by a deepening crisis of confidence and self- belief, and punctuated by innumerable creative stops and starts. At the heart of the crisis is the unrewarding struggle to unshoulder The Rescue, which involves writer’s block, broken deadlines and much frantic self- recrimination. Other conflicts and indecisions contrib- ute to a sense of impasse: divided commitments to the past (The Rescue) and new projects (Lord Jim and ‘Heart of Darkness’); indeci- sion about the career of writer or seaman; the need for freer artistic rein and the constricting of supporting a family through the production of saleable copy; in addition, having broken his close ties with Unwin, he has lost the publisher’s help in marketing his work and must now fend for himself. 1898 may be seen as JC’s painful initiation into many of the difficulties that are to dog his career until 1914. 7 (Fri) Congratulates Unwin on having published S. Weir Mitchell’s Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker (1897). 8 Wells and Israel Zangwill nominate The Nigger as one of the best books of 1897 for a competition in the Academy, although it is finally judged to be ‘too slight and episodic’ (CR, I, 177). 12? Crane has proposed that he and JC collaborate on a play – ‘The Predecessor’ – about the American West. Although the two men devise a scenario, the project does not develop further (JC will later use elements of the play’s action in ‘The Planter of Malata’). 15 Alfred Borys Leo, the Conrads’ first child, is born. For the next few months, Jessie’s sister Dolly stays at Ivy Walls to help with the baby. JC probably begins composing ‘Youth’ at mid- month, employing his narrator Marlow for the first time. 44 A Conrad Chronology

16 Comments on the manuscript of Galsworthy’s Jocelyn (1898). Informs Crane that, after their recent discussions, he has been ‘haunted’ by his , (1898). 19 Death of Karol Zagórski, JC’s distant cousin. JC finishes ‘Alphonse Daudet’, begun the previous day (Outlook, 9 April [NLL]), his first exercise in occasional literary appreciation.

February 2 (Wed) Meets Crane in London to fix the date of the Conrads’ forthcoming visit to and presents him with an inscribed copy of The Nigger. Angered by ’s lukewarm review of Kipling’s Captains Courageous (1897) and The Nigger in the Saturday Review of 29 January (CR, I, 179– 80), JC sends away an article defending Kipling to the Outlook (unpublished and manu- script unknown). Work meanwhile continues on The Rescue in an attempt to emerge from ‘the slough of despond [of] that damned and muddy romance’ (to Garnett: CL, II, 32). 10 Has recently seen Pawling, who recommends sending the unfin- ished Rescue to America. 12 Makes notes on the Franco- Prussian War, probably for Crane, who is penning a series of articles on ‘Great Battles of the World’. 19 The Conrads leave to spend two weeks with the Cranes at Oxted, Surrey. 26 The Cranes arrange a dinner party in their honour, with guests including Harold Frederic and possibly Ford Madox Ford. 28 JC in London on business.

March 1 (Tues) On their way home from Oxted, the Conrads stay with the Garnetts at their Surrey home to show them the new baby. 2 JC sits for his first portrait, undertaken by Ellen (‘Nellie’) Heath (held at the Leeds City Art Gallery); a visitor on that day, the Russian émigré Fanny Stepniak, finds JC ‘decidedly unsympa- thetic’ (MDF, p. 4). 4 The Conrads return home. 5 Heinemann issues a contract for The Rescue; S. S. McClure of New York has paid £250 for American serial rights to the novel, so easing JC’s financial situation but adding further pressure to finish the work; Clement Shorter will soon buy the British 1898 45

serial rights for the Illustrated London News. JC has been reading Graham’s Notes on the District of Menteith (1895). 13 Garnett promises to come on the 18th and stay overnight. 17 Crane presents JC with the manuscript of his story ‘The Five White Mice’ (1898). 19 At the invitation of Crane’s American publisher Frederick A. Stokes, JC joins a dinner- party at London’s Savage Club, prob- ably staying overnight with the Cranes. 21 Despite Garnett’s help, The Rescue still produces ‘positive agony’: ‘I have not an atom of courage left’ (CL, II, 47). 25 TU published by Scribner’s (by Unwin in Britain, 2 April, mark- ing the end of JC’s present connection with this publisher), dedicated to Krieger. JC and Crane lunch with Blackwood at the Garrick Club, the latter advancing Crane £50 which enables him to depart for the Spanish– American War as a correspondent. 29 Recovering from a recent illness, JC ponders Garnett’s suggested revisions to Part II of The Rescue but is too afflicted by ‘crises of despair’ to act upon them (CL, II, 49). Graham has paid a recent visit.

April 8 (Fri) Graham makes a Good Friday visit to Ivy Walls. c.10 Crane leaves for Cuba. 13 JC in London but misses Graham, who has been reading TU, especially admiring ‘Karain’. 16 Finishes ‘An Observer in Malaya’, a review of Hugh Clifford’s Studies in Brown Humanity (1898) (Academy, 23 April [NLL]), which soon leads to a meeting between them. 21 United States declares war on Spain.

May Unwell and held up by domestic difficulties, JC works ‘against the grain’ for the first fortnight (to Graham: CL, II, 61) but probably not on The Rescue, of which ‘a ridiculously small quantity’ has been written (to Garnett: CL, II, 62). The month’s end sees surprising news of two short stories in progress, ‘Youth’ and another called ‘Jim: A Sketch’, both destined for Blackwood’s Magazine. ‘Youth’, a tale probably largely drafted in January about the time of Borys’s birth, is revised and an ending added during this month; ‘Jim: A Sketch’, an undated 28- page precursor to Lord Jim, may also have been written 46 A Conrad Chronology this month, though a starting- date earlier in the year is possible (and one as far back as 1896 has been suggested). These and other new projects will serve to intensify JC’s frustration with, and animus towards, the unfinished novel, The Rescue.

12 (Thurs) Cannot accept an Unwin invitation because he expects a visit from two old shipmates, apparently Captain Frederick Paton and William Paramor from his Adowa days. ‘Is the glorious and philanthropic [Spanish– American] war affecting the book business in any way?’ he asks (Private collection).

June 3 (Fri) Finishes ‘Youth’ (Blackwood’s, Sept [YOS]); a delighted Blackwood predicts that it will be a ‘favourite item’ with the magazine’s readers (LBM, p. 28). 4 ‘Tales of the Sea’ (JC’s short piece on Marryat and Fenimore Cooper) appears in Outlook (NLL). Sends the first 18 manu- script pages of ‘Jim: A Sketch’ to Meldrum, anticipating a long short story of 20– 25,000 words, covering two instalments in Blackwood’s Magazine. 7 Now determines to lay the ‘Jim’ story aside to work on The Rescue. 11 Has been reading Graham’s ‘Bloody ’ (1897), a sardonic attack on European ; JC thanks him for a copy of Father Archangel of Scotland, and Other Essays (1896) by Graham and his wife. c.17 Robert McClure stays overnight and re- negotiates the July dead- line date for delivery of The Rescue manuscript. 23 Meldrum visits for lunch and to discuss plans for a volume of stories, the future YOS.

By late June, JC is involved in Part III of The Rescue, but ‘cannot make up for the lost 3 months’ and is ‘living in a hell ... of [his] own’ (to Garnett: CL, II, 74). For the next six months he makes little progress with the novel, increasingly paralysed by approaching deadlines and afflicted by spiralling indecisions and debts.

July 12 (Tues) After a visit from the ever- supportive Garnett, JC writes ominously to him: ‘I think I went wrong from the beginning [of 1898 47

The Rescue] but now I am waist deep and there is no going back’ (CL, II, 76). 19 Organized by Graham, JC attends an interview with Sir Francis Evans of the Union Line about a possible command, although nothing materializes. 21 JC begins correcting proofs of ‘Youth’. 30 Receives a copy of Graham’s Aurora la Cujiñi: A Realistic Sketch in Seville (1898), already seen in manuscript.

August

3 (Wed) ‘I feel suicidal’ (to Garnett: CL, II, 83). He continues to do so during a month that brings to a head his crisis with The Rescue and finds him trapped between heated self- abasement and prevarication with his publishers. Graham’s renewed attempt to find him a command at sea arouses no enthusiasm. 13 Looks forward to a meeting with Garnett, to whom he writes: ‘I see how ill, mentally, I have been these last four months’ (CL, II, 85). 27 Garnett visits Ivy Walls to cheer up a dejected JC. The latter upon hearing that Shorter plans to begin serialization of The Rescue in the Illustrated London News in October, feeling in desperation that ‘to get to sea would be salvation’. JC reads Rimbaud’s poetry and Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) but with little relish. ‘I wish you would come to shoot me,’ he writes to Graham (CL, II, 89).

September 1 (Thurs) JC goes to stay with the Garnetts at the Cearne in Limpsfield for a fortnight ‘to do a monstrous heap of work’, almost certainly on The Rescue (to Helen Sanderson: CL, II, 91). There, probably for the first time, he meets the 24- year- old writer Ford Madox Ford, who will soon sub- let Pent Farm in Postling () to the Conrads. From this meeting there emerges a plan to collaborate with Ford, JC’s junior by 16 years, and a subsequent friendship and association extend- ing over the next ten years; JC will later describe Ford as ‘a sort of life- long habit’ (to Wells: CL, III, 287), although their relationship will end acrimoniously in 1909. It is probably on this visit that Garnett hears JC give a vivid synopsis of ‘Heart of Darkness’. 48 A Conrad Chronology

6 E. V. Lucas visits the Cearne, probably bringing news that TU has been nominated to be a ‘crowned’ volume by the Academy in January 1899. 27 JC travels to Glasgow to explore possibilities of securing a com- mand at sea. With , whose The Lost Pibroch (1896) he has just read, he sees the recently invented Röntgen x- ray machine demonstrated by Graham’s friend, Dr John McIntyre, who takes an x- ray photograph of JC’s hand. On the last evening, he attends a symposium at the Glasgow Arts Club. 29 On returning home, confirms to Ford that he will accept the tenancy of Pent Farm.

October 3 (Mon) Galsworthy has paid a recent visit. 7 JC makes a first visit to Pent Farm and stays the night, stopping off in London to see McClure. 11 Looks forward to being a neighbour of Wells, whose Sandgate home is only five miles away. 14 Brings together Garnett and McClure at the Restaurant d’Italie. 16 Still involved with ‘the incubus of that horrid novel [The Rescue]’, he looks forward to its completion and to a time when he can return to sea: ‘I am by no means happy on shore’ (to Mrs Bontine: CL, II, 105). 17 Sends a letter to about the SS Mohegan disaster, which has occurred on the 14th (unpublished). 20 Has recently read James’s The Two Magics (1898) and admires ‘The Turn of the Screw’ as a story that ‘extracts an intellectual thrill out of the subject’ (to Ford: CL, II, 111). 26 Move takes place to Pent Farm. 28 After consulting Garnett and Henley, JC reports to Galsworthy that he has finalized a plan to collaborate with Ford on ‘Seraphina’ (Romance), probably begun by the latter in 1896. Receives £10 from Galsworthy, while also trying to raise money to help Cora Crane.

November 12 (Sat) As preliminary homework for his collaboration, JC reads Ford’s first novel, The Shifting of the Fire (1892), while making desultory progress on The Rescue. 1898 49

16 Calls on, but fails to see, Wells in Sandgate. 17 Though collaboration will not effectively begin until October 1899, JC invites Ford to Pent Farm to read out parts of Romance, a synopsis of which will be constructed in late 1898 or early 1899. 22 The deadline for serialization of The Rescue in the Illustrated London News is by this date put back to April 1899. JC is flattered by Max Nordau’s appreciation of his work. 27 Edwin Pugh stays at Pent Farm, followed by two other visitors who, with JC, entertain themselves with a reading of Wells’s The Invisible Man (1897).

December 1 (Thurs) Begins reading Graham’s Mogreb- el- Acksa (1898). 3 JC’s 41st birthday. 4 Enjoys Crane’s ‘The Price of the Harness’ in Blackwood’s, despite gloom over The Rescue. JC receives a copy of Edwin Pugh’s King Circumstance (1898). 18 By this date reaches the beginning of Part IV of The Rescue, already set aside to work on a new story, ‘The Heart of Darkness’ – ‘for the sake of the shekels’ (to Garnett: CL, II, 132). After entertain- ing Galsworthy, reports that he has finished reading Garnett’s ‘A Christmas Play for Children’. 21 The multiplying literary and financial crises of the year leave JC feeling unseasonably gloomy: ‘I toil on. So did the gentleman of the name of Sisyphus ... This is the very marrow of my news’ (to Graham: CL, II, 134). 22 JC and Ford call on Wells in Sandgate but find that he is not . 30 Blackwood invites JC to submit a story for the thousandth issue of Blackwood’s, to appear in February 1899. 31 He responds with the offer of ‘The Heart of Darkness’ and prom- ises ‘to hurry up the copy for that express purpose’, adding, as a foretaste: ‘The criminality of inefficiency and pure selfishness when tackling the civilizing work in Africa is a justifiable idea. The subject is of our time distinc[t]ly – though not topically treated’ (CL, II, 139– 40).

The first Russian translations of JC’s works (‘The Lagoon’ and ‘Karain’) appear in Russkii vestnik [‘The Russian Messenger’] this year. 50 A Conrad Chronology

1899 January 3 (Tues) After a recent visit by the Wellses, JC now reads a French translation of The Time Machine and is in possession of The Wheels of Chance: A Holiday Adventure (1896); meanwhile ‘Heart of Darkness’ ‘grows like the genii from the bottle in the Arabian Tale’ (to Wells: CL, II, 146). 9 Sends off a first batch (14,700 words) of ‘Heart of Darkness’. 10 The first Scandinavian translation of a JC work (‘An Outpost of Progress’) begins in Aftonposten [‘The Evening Post’], a Finnish newspaper published in Swedish in Helsinki, finishing on 28 January. 11 Crane returns to England from Cuba; he and Cora will soon move into Brede Place (East ). 12 Has received a copy of Maupassant’s Des Vers (1880); has also been reading Graham’s ‘Pax Brittannica’, an attack on colonial hypocrisy, in the Daily Chronicle (11 Jan). 14 The Academy ‘crowns’ TU as one of the most promising books of the previous year, its laudation probably penned by Bennett. Of the 50 guineas prize, £50 is sent to Krieger, leaving JC with an outstanding debt to him of £130. 29 Borys’s postponed christening takes place at the Roman Catholic Church of the Virgin Mary of Good Counsel in Hythe. 30 In London for two days, sees Garnett, Pawling, Meldrum, ‘pub- lishers and other horrors’ (to Graham: CL, II, 154).

A second batch of ‘Heart of Darkness’ copy (of unknown length) arrives in Blackwood’s hands at the end of the month.

February 6 (Mon) Informs Meldrum that ‘Heart of Darkness’ has so grown on him that it will require three instalments instead of two. 7 Finishes the third and final batch of the story and sends it to Edinburgh (Blackwood’s Feb– April [YOS]).Through JC, Wells has granted Aniela Zagórska permission for Polish translations of his work. JC recommends to her West African Studies (1898) by Mary Kingsley, a writer and traveller ‘très remarquable’ (CL, II, 156). 8 Though promising himself that he will now return to The Rescue, JC is about to begin a four- month break from composition. Invited 1899 51

by Graham, he attends – although with considerable reservations – a meeting of the Social Democratic Federation at St James’s Hall, Piccadilly, but refuses to be on the platform; he is introduced there to W. H. Hudson. During the next six months he makes no further London visits. 12 Blackwood’s tight publishing schedule for the ‘Heart of Darkness’ serial demands a quick return of proofs – JC has been able to spend only twelve hours with those for Part II. 14 In addition to sending a cheque for £60 to JC on the 10th, Blackwood now offers a further advance of £100 to ease his debts. 21 (or 28) JC has recently seen C. K. Shorter, editor of the Illustrated London News, to confess that he cannot meet the deadline for serialization of The Rescue in his magazine. The unfinished novel is now set aside for many years. 26 Has read William Beckford’s Vathek (1784) and a modern trans- lation of Abu Zaid’s The Celebrated Romance of the Stealing of the Mare (1892).

March 10 (Fri) Now having read the final part of ‘Heart of Darkness’, Blackwood thinks it to be ‘vivid and powerful, and a wonderful study of what may be called the process of decivilisation’ (LBM, p. 58). 12 JC defends James as a writer who ‘feels deeply and vividly every delicate shade’ (to Galsworthy: CL, II, 175), drawing examples from The Lesson of the Master (1880) and Terminations (1895). 25 The Fords stay at Pent Farm while awaiting a move to Aldington, leaving on the 30th. 26 McClure stays overnight to discuss the fate of The Rescue.

April 12 (Wed) Gout and depression have kept JC in bed the previous week. 17 Reads Graham’s The Ipané (1899). 23 In response to Lutosławski, the Polish novelist returns to the question of ‘The Emigration of Talent’ in Kraj, with a scathing attack on JC’s supposed ‘desertion’ of Poland and on his ignominious betrayal of patriotic duties in the quest for private 52 A Conrad Chronology

gain. (This article is reprinted in CUFE, pp. 182– 92; on its possible influence on the substance of Lord Jim, see Najder, pp. 294– 6.)

May 17 (Wed) Makes a first contact with Hugh Clifford by letter. 20 Entertains Wells for lunch at Pent Farm. 22 Provides book and manuscript items for a charity auction, the Grand Bazaar, to be held at the Albert Hall in late June on behalf of the Charing Cross Hospital.

June 3 (Sat) The Conrads spend a fortnight with the Cranes at Brede Place, while Pent Farm is decorated. The two men go for frequent trips on La Reine, a boat they have purchased from Hope.

July 6 (Thurs) 31 manuscript pages of Lord Jim, probably written and shown to Garnett in June, now sent off, with JC anticipating a story of 40,000 words and two instalments to be finished by the end of July. Lord Jim will prove to be the most spectacular of his ‘runaway’ novels – that is, a work originally conceived as a short story that, batch by batch of manuscript, slowly expands, complicates and accretes into a full- length novel (in this case, of 120,000 words). With equal regularity, he will anticipate completion and in good faith assure his publishers that an end is in sight, only to find that it still awaits him. In later life he humorously described this process as chasing after his subject for the length of a novel ‘without being able to overtake it’ (to Galsworthy: CL, VIII, 318). 23 Anticipates meetings with James and Henley during the first fortnight in August. 28 On his return from a short cruise, thanks Clifford for a copy of his Since the Beginning (1898). 31 Lord Jim now expanding, JC seeks a further advance of £50.

August 22 (Tues) A first meeting with Clifford has recently taken place at Pent Farm. JC plans a volume of short stories (the coming YOS), which at this stage includes ‘Youth’, ‘Heart of Darkness’ and 1899 53

the ‘Jim’ story, now running to some 20,000 words. In a letter to Meldrum, JC, perhaps apprehensive that his recent commit- ment to Heinemann for a volume of stories (the future TOS) might complicate his relationship with the Blackwood firm, feels out the nature of Blackwood’s expectations with regard to his future work, asking whether he has a free hand or whether ‘Mr B’wood wishes to have everything till the next vol ... is completed’ (CL, II, 192). 23 Turns down a first approach by James Brand Pinker to be his literary agent: ‘My method of writing is so unbusiness- like that I don’t think you could have any use for such an unsatisfactory person’ (CL, II, 195). 27 Jessie’s relations stay at Pent Farm for the next fortnight.

September 2 (Sat) After a visit by Ford, a weary JC presses on with Lord Jim, expecting to be finished at the end of the month (ten months away from actual completion). From this date, the novel’s com- position runs parallel with the monthly obligation of revising and correcting serial proofs. 10 Describing himself as ‘like a damned paralyzed mud turtle’ (CL, II, 197), JC asks Crane to come and cheer him up.

October Serialization of Lord Jim, A Sketch begins in Blackwood’s this month. 3 (Tues) Collaboration with Ford now begins, when the former comes to Pent Farm to read out the first chapters of The Inheritors (Romance having been set aside for later). Ford will be responsi- ble for most of the writing, with JC acting as critical reader and reviser during rare breaks from Lord Jim. 8 Meldrum visits and stays overnight, with Ford also a recent visitor. 9 JC offers Clifford a detailed critique of In a Corner of Asia (1899). 11 Outbreak of the Boer War. 12 Thanks Galsworthy for a £20 loan. A long letter to Sanderson prefigures the dejection and strain that steadily intensify during the next two months and culminate in the minor ‘breakdown’ of January 1900. 24 Having reached ch. 9 of Lord Jim, JC optimistically looks forward to a February completion. 54 A Conrad Chronology

26 Has read two articles by Garnett in the Outlook – ‘Views and Reviews: Nietzsche’ (8 July) and ‘Ibsen’ (23 September). 27 Reads the present issues of Blackwood’s – On Trial by ‘Zack’ (Gwendoline Keats) and, in November, John Buchan’s ‘The Far Islands’, which JC thinks to be a plagiarized version of Kipling’s ‘The Finest Story in the World’ (1893).

November 9 (Thurs) Having received a partial mock- up of the YOS book edi- tion from Blackwood, JC undertakes a final round of revision on ‘Youth’ and ‘Heart of Darkness’ during the next few months. 12 Prompted by an impatient letter from his collaborator, JC invites Ford for discussions at Pent Farm, where the Fords remain for just under a fortnight. 23 McClure expresses interest in acquiring American book and serial rights to The Inheritors. 25 Back at work on Lord Jim, JC approaches the end of ch. 13. Accepts an invitation for the family to stay with the Meldrums for two days.

December 1 (Fri) The Conrads learn of the sudden and violent death of Hope’s son Fountaine on the Essex marshes and rush to Stanford for the day. 3 JC’s 42nd birthday. Has received a copy of Turgenev’s A Desperate Character and Other Stories, translated by Constance Garnett (1899) and dedicated to JC. 11 (or 18) The Hopes leave after a weekend stay. 17 Estimating that Lord Jim now stands at 40,000 words, JC asks Meldrum for a further advance of £20. 19 Has read Kipling’s The Seven Seas (1896). 21 Galsworthy visits, or has recently done so. 25 The Conrads spend a quiet Christmas at home while, not far away in Brede Place, the Cranes celebrate the year’s end with a performance of The Ghost, an entertainment allegedly written by ten authors, including James, Wells, Gissing and JC. 26 Promises Blackwood that the end of the ‘Jim’ story is ‘well in view now’, though presciently adds that he often suffers ‘from optical delusions (and others) where ... [his] work is concerned’ (CL, II, 230). 1900 55

1900 January 1 (Mon) The first- known German translation of a JC work (‘Karain’) begins as a serial in the weekly literary journal Der Romanwelt [‘The World of the Novel’]. 3 The New Year (and century) begins where the old finished, with Lord Jim – now standing at 17 chapters – expanding with every batch of manuscript sent. 6 Thanks and praises Wells for The Plattner Story and Others (1897). 20 Garnett offers high praise for the portions of Lord Jim that he has seen. 25 For the next three weeks, JC is ill with bronchitis, malaria and gout – ‘In reality a breakdown’ (to Graham: CL, II, 248). He remains in his sick- bed until 8 February. February 14 (Wed) The Conrads stay for two days with the Wellses in Sandgate, where JC recuperates and ponders ‘Jim’s end’, promis- ing to be finished in ten days (to Meldrum: CL, II, 249). 16 The completed manuscript of The Inheritors is now sent to Heinemann, with Ford invited for a talk about its last chapter. 18 Galsworthy visits Pent Farm, reporting that Sanderson has been ordered to the Front in South Africa. 19 Now recovered from illness, JC resumes work on Lord Jim. 27 Invites Ford for a visit next week. March 3 (Sat) Has read Constance Garnett’s translation of Turgenev’s and Other Stories (1899), admiring ‘Three Portraits’ and ‘Enough’; also reads Graham’s ‘Buta’ in the day’s Saturday Review. 25 Offers Pawling a synopsis of a ‘big historical romance about the Anabaptists’ that newly interests him as a collaboration: Ford would be responsible for researching German sources and JC for composition (CL, IX, 73). Nothing comes of the plan, though the story of the Münster Anabaptists will later be developed by Ford and in The Desirable Alien (1913). 26 Has been ‘cutting and slashing’ whole paragraphs of Lord Jim (to Garnett: CL, II, 257). By this date, The Inheritors is accepted for publication after a positive reader’s report by the Irish writer Stephen Gwynn. 56 A Conrad Chronology

April 2 (Mon) JC consents to ‘An Outpost of Progress’ being reprinted in a forthcoming ‘patriotic charitable publication’, The Ladysmith Treasury (1900). Poradowska arrives for a week’s stay, suggesting that the Conrads should visit Knokke- aan- Zee, Belgium, in the summer; she meets the Fords (at lunch on the 4th) and also Galsworthy. 3 JC sends a batch of Lord Jim, assuming that he has now reached its last chapter, apologizing to Meldrum for the ‘dragging man- ner of its production’ and promising an end on the 12th (CL, II, 260). Its composition will drag on for another three months. 6 Ford joins JC at Pent Farm for a meeting with McClure and Gwynn to discuss the marketing of The Inheritors. 12 Anticipates a new phase of collaboration with Ford on Romance and assures Blackwood that he still vigorously pursues an end to Lord Jim.

May 6 (Sun) Cancels a visit to see Crane, now fatally ill with tuberculo- sis; Crane’s wife Cora writes to friends, desperately trying to raise money to cover his medical costs. 10 Has read Poradowska’s Pour Noémi (1900) several times and dis- cussed it with Ford. 14 In his last extant letter, the dying Crane asks a close friend to try to secure a Civil List pension for the needy JC (‘He is poor and a gentleman and proud’ [MDF, p. 6]). 15 On receipt of the latest batch of Lord Jim (chs. 28– 30 and part of 31), Blackwood decides that the story has so overrun its estimated length that it must be issued as a separate volume, necessitating a change of title from ‘Lord Jim: A Sketch’ to Lord Jim: A Tale and a new third story to be composed for YOS. 16 (or 23) Goes to Dover, where the dying Crane rests before begin- ning his journey (on the 24th) to a German clinic; JC sees him for 20 minutes.

During this month and the next, he makes a final intensive effort to finish Lord Jim, composing its last quarter relatively quickly.

June 5 (Tues) While not unexpected, news from Germany of Crane’s death (at the age of 28) leaves JC distressed and shocked. Blackwood 1900 57

issues a revised contract for Lord Jim as a separate volume as well as one for the Youth volume, which will await its new third story for the next two years. 19 JC looks forward to a visit from Galsworthy.

Wells sends an inscribed copy of Love and Mr Lewisham (1900) this month.

July 14 (Sat) After a final stretch of 23 hours, JC finishes Lord Jim at 6 a.m. and, in high spirits, delivers the last of the manuscript to Meldrum in London. From there, the Conrads travel via Slough to the Hopes in Stanford for the weekend. 20 They depart for Belgium, where the Fords await them in Bruges. There JC and Ford plan a working- holiday on their new joint project, Romance. A heat- wave soon drives the party to the coast, where they take up residence at the Grand Hôtel de la Plage in Knokke- aan- Zee, with JC then spending several days revising and correcting Lord Jim proofs.

August 5 (Sun) By this date the Belgian stay is thrown into disarray when Borys falls ill with severe dysentery and needs constant nursing. Depressed and suffering from mental exhaustion, JC has a gout attack, with the result that hardly any work is done on Romance. 11 Writes to Galsworthy: ‘I had enough of this holiday’ (CL, II, 287). 18 The Conrads arrive home, with JC and Ford now planning to meet regularly to make up for lost time.

September Upon concluding Lord Jim, JC prepares to take a 20- month leave of absence from his commitment to the Blackwood house in order to juggle with two prior obligations. The first is to Ford, who has been waiting patiently to begin collaboration on ‘Seraphina’ (later entitled Romance), on which work begins in earnest this month. The second is to the publisher William Heinemann, to whom, in mid- 1899, JC has promised a volume of short stories. This obligation means that JC needs to compose the four pieces – ‘Typhoon’, ‘Falk’, ‘’ and ‘To- morrow’ – that will make up the contents of TOS. While he fulfils this commitment to Heinemann, his unannounced period of truancy 58 A Conrad Chronology from the Blackwood firm begins to impact upon a hitherto close rela- tionship. May 1902, when Blackwood confronts JC at a London hotel, marks the beginning of their growing estrangement, with Blackwood coming to feel as the year wears on that the firm can no longer carry the burden of JC’s errant working- rhythms and financial problems.

10 (Mon) James sends an inscribed copy of his The Soft Side (1900). 13 Having recently met Galsworthy and Garnett separately, JC brings them together for the first time in London. Garnett has been reading Galsworthy’s work in manuscript. 19 Ford at Pent Farm, with the two writers ‘working at Seraphina. Bosh! Horrors!’ (to Galsworthy: CL, II, 295). By this date, Pinker has again offered his services as JC’s literary agent, and the latter responds with the suggestion that Pinker should take in hand the placement of Romance for English serialization.

After this visit, JC turns to his own work, probably soon beginning two stories – ‘Falk’ and ‘Typhoon’ – that run in tandem with the col- laborated Romance for the next few months. October 3 (Wed) Accompanied by Ford, JC goes to meet Pinker in London and begins an association with the agent lasting over 20 years. 9 Lord Jim, A Tale published by Blackwood (in America under the title Lord Jim: A Romance by Doubleday, McClure, 31 Oct), dedicated to the Hopes. 10 Feels ‘ill and hopeless’ after three days in bed (to Graham: CL, II, 296), perhaps a bout of publication nerves. Has read Graham’s Thirteen Stories (1900). 24 Meldrum gives a dinner party at the Garrick Club attended by JC, Alexander Michie, George Blackwood, Gwynn and others; the host had wished to invite John Buchan but has ‘remembered Conrad’s violent antipathy to his work’ (to Blackwood: LBM, p. 113).

On his return home, JC spends a period working with Ford, who leaves him exhausted. He is now cheered by favourable reviews of Lord Jim in the Manchester Guardian and Daily Chronicle (CR, I, 286– 91). November Serialization of Lord Jim in Blackwood’s ends this month. 1901 59

4 (Sun) Galsworthy pays a visit to discuss his work- in- progress. 7 Receives copies of Ford’s The Cinque Ports and Galsworthy’s Villa Rubein and Other Stories (both 1900). 12 Has received a letter from James ‘absolutely enthusiastic’ about Lord Jim (to Meldrum: CL, II, 307). A recent reading of Olive Garnett’s Petersburg Tales (1900) leaves him full of admiration. 20 Wells sends an advance copy of The First Men in the Moon (1901).

Dispatches regular copy of ‘Typhoon’ to Pinker during this and the next month. December 3 (Mon) JC’s 43rd birthday. 11 Attends a dinner party given by Galsworthy at Kettner’s Restaurant in Soho (with Pawling, Meldrum, McClure and Garnett), staying overnight with Galsworthy. 12 While in London, visits Meldrum, sees his banker and asks Blackwood whether he would stand surety for a loan of £250. Blackwood agrees, granting a further loan of £50, for which JC has asked. 19 Galsworthy has recently made a pre- Christmas visit. Apropos Lord Jim, JC calls himself ‘the spoiled child of the critics’ (to Blackwood: CL, II, 313). Over the Christmas period JC meets Ford at his new home in Winchelsea, East Sussex, to work on Romance. 1901 January 10 (Thurs) JC finishes ‘Typhoon’ at midnight (PMMag, Jan– March 1902 [TOS]). 14 Looks forward to a closer association with Pinker, who is now tasked with finding a placement for ‘Typhoon’ as a serial. c.21 Begins ‘Falk’, after having received from Gosse, an expert on Scandinavian culture and literature, advice on ‘names’ in the story and other ‘additional information’ (CL, II, 319). 22 Death of Queen Victoria; Edward VII succeeds. February 13 (Wed) Receives a copy of Bobrowski’s two- volume A Memoir of (1900). 28 Heinemann issues contracts for The Inheritors and TOS. 60 A Conrad Chronology

March 1 (Fri) Returning from London after seeing McClure, JC is laid low by a feverish chill, gout and toothache, which prevent him from working. On a visit to Pent Farm a few days later, Jessie’s mother falls ill and remains in her sick- bed for a week.

Illness spreads through the household when Jessie develops severe neuralgia at the end of the month. JC’s only literary occupation is to read the manuscript of Galsworthy’s A Man of (1901).

April Slowly recovering, JC is visited by Ford and, on the 28th, makes plans to bring the family to stay with the Fords in Winchelsea, though the visit is delayed while JC attempts to finish ‘Falk’.

May c.10 (Fri) The Conrads go to Winchelsea, where joint work on Romance continues and JC completes ‘Falk’ (unserialized [TOS]); prompted by suggestions from Ford and by an anecdote from the latter’s The Cinque Ports (1900), he also begins ‘Amy Foster’. 23 The Inheritors published by McClure, Phillips (by Heinemann in Britain, 26 June; unserialized), dedicated to the authors’ elder children. The Conrads return to Pent Farm.

June 3 (Mon) In professing to ‘see daylight through the Maga win- dow’, JC offers Blackwood the first of many lame placatory gestures about his failure to produce a third story for the YOS volume (CL, II, 329); admires the work of and Neil Munro in the latest issue of Blackwood’s Magazine. 7 A first draft of Romance now completed, JC and Ford begin a process of revision and rewriting that occupies the next nine months. 16 Finishes drafting ‘Amy Foster’ (Illustrated London News, Dec [TOS]). 17 Goes to Winchelsea for further work with Ford on Romance, returning on the 24th and planning a London visit on the 26th. 30 Galsworthy visits to discuss his work- in- progress. 1901 61

During a June visit to Wells in Sandgate, JC meets the novelist George Gissing and shows him the manuscript of ‘Amy Foster’.

July 1 (Mon) In London, hands over part of the Romance manuscript to Pinker, who will forward it to Blackwood with a view to serialization. 16 Interviewed about The Inheritors by a journalist. 18 Galsworthy visits to discuss his play ‘The Civilized’ (never finished). 23 JC in London for an interview with Pawling about the market- ing of The Inheritors. Informs Ford that he will rewrite Part III (as newly numbered) of Romance. 25 After unsuccessful manœuvrings with life insurance policies, JC borrows £100 from Ford, a debt left unpaid for many years. Jessie, suffering from gastric neuralgia, is nursed by her mother.

August 2 (Fri) Answering a review in Saturday Review of 13 July, JC defends The Inheritors in a lengthy letter to the edi- tor; his letter – an eloquent statement of some of his most basic artistic convictions – appears on the 24th. 15 Blackwood rejects Romance, a refusal prompting JC to invite Ford for a discussion about its disposal and forcing JC into closer involvement with its writing. 26 Has enjoyed Admiral Sir William Robert Kennedy’s Hurrah for the Life of a Sailor: Fifty Years in the Navy (1901).

September– October Romance undergoes a thorough overhaul during these two months, with JC probably carrying out most of this revision and Ford cleaning up the text. Desperate to finish the story in order to return to his own work, JC will soon come to feel that the collaborated novel ‘seems to hang about ... [him] like a curse’ (to Meldrum: CL, II, 367).

November 7 (Thurs) In response to Blackwood’s request that the YOS volume should be ready for spring 1902, JC frankly acknowledges his fail- ure to compose a third story and tries to sweeten the mood of the 62 A Conrad Chronology

impatient publisher with a promised deadline of 15 January 1902 (which he does not keep to). By this date, he believes (wrongly) that his contribution to Romance is substantially finished and now looks forward to composing a new short story, probably ‘ To- morrow’. He catches up on his reading of Blackwood’s. 11 Following upon two readings of Galsworthy’s A Man of Devon (1901), JC offers a detailed critique: ‘The fact is you want more scepticism at the very foundation of your work. Scepticism [is] the tonic of minds, the tonic of life, the agent of truth – the way of art and salvation’ (CL, II, 359). 15 Olive Garnett and Elsie Hueffer visit, finding JC troubled by gout and despondent about his work.

December 3 (Tues) JC’s 44th birthday.

Christmas reading includes Graham’s A Vanished Arcadia (1901). Romance dominates most of the month, with JC and Ford planning a working- holiday on the novel. The JCs leave for Winchelsea on the 24th, though collaboration is delayed when Ford, having swallowed a chicken bone at his birthday party (on the 17th), is incapable of working. While Jessie returns to Pent Farm after Christmas, JC stays on to work with Ford. He later comments on the closing year: ‘The last has been a disastrous year for me. I have wasted – not idled – it away, tinkering here, tinkering there ...’ (to Meldrum: CL, II, 367– 8). 1902 January 6 (Mon) On his return to Pent Farm, JC commits himself single- mindedly to Romance, expecting to finish it at the end of the month. The period from January until the novel’s completion in March represents the high point of his involvement with its writing. 8 An acute financial crisis – insurance premiums fall due – JC to ask Blackwood (through Meldrum) for an advance; JC’s com- plicated work- plans and broken deadlines prompt a quarrel with Pinker, who refuses a further advance on Romance. In response, JC growls: ‘Pray do not write to me as [if] I were a fool blundering in the dark. There are other virtues than punctuality’ (CL, II, 370). 1902 63

11 Wells visits, reads parts of Romance, and offers to stand surety on another advance from Pinker; he visits again on the 15th to help JC sort out his finances. 16 Still struggling to manage his debts, JC finishes ‘ To- morrow’ (PMMag, Aug [TOS]). 24 Ford stays at Pent Farm for a few days to work on Romance. 27 Delivers part of the Romance manuscript to Pinker in London and now works on the end of Part IV.

February 3 (Mon) Before leaving for a day in London to lunch with James Blackwood and Meldrum, JC hears of the suicide (by poison) of Ford’s father- in- law, Dr William Martindale. 4 Still in desperate financial straits, he sounds out the possibility of further advances from Blackwood. 25 Proposes to Pinker that the latter should buy out his life- insurance policy, to be paid off by JC’s future writings. Pinker agrees, the first of many instances when the agent comes to his client’s rescue.

During the month JC reads and responds to Wells’s published lec- ture, The Discovery of the Future (1902).

March 7 (Fri) In London, delivers the final portion of the Romance manu- script to Pinker, who is greatly impressed by the developing narrative. 9 ‘Falk’ (TOS) has been refused for serialization by George Blackwood: publishers, observes JC, ‘seem to treat it as though it had the pest’ (to Ford: CL, II, 388). 10 Comments on Arnold Bennett’s A Man from the North (1898), questioning his over- zealous commitment to ‘dogmas of realism’ (CL, II, 390). 14 The Conrads spend the weekend with the Fords at Winchelsea, no doubt celebrating the completion of Romance, soon to be dedicated to the authors’ wives. 17 Still needing a third story for the Youth volume and recently prompted by Ford’s suggestion, JC begins ‘The End of the Tether’, the troublesome evolution of which occupies the next several months. 23 Pays a Sunday visit to see Wells in Sandgate. 64 A Conrad Chronology

April 2 (Wed) Accepts H.- D. Davray’s offer to be his French translator. 5 Thanks Clifford for a copy of his Bushwhacking and Other Asiatic Tales and Memories (1901). 14 Blackwood asks for news of the third story for the YOS volume, its publication now being deferred until after the summer’s ‘Coronation excitement’ (LBM, p. 147). 15 Writes to Ford, ‘I miss collaboration in a most ridiculous manner’ (CL, II, 408). 26 Galsworthy pays a weekend visit, probably soon followed by Ford to discuss his work- in- progress, The Benefactor (1905).

May 1 (Thurs) Post- Romance fatigue accounts for slow progress on ‘The End of the Tether’. 15 Having sold the American book and serial rights of Romance to S. S. McClure, Pinker warns JC that the work may need to be cut before serialization. 20 A first batch (14,500 words) of ‘The End of the Tether’, due to begin as a serial in July, is sent off, with JC estimating that the story will run to 30,000 words. 31 Treaty of Vereeniging ends the Boer War. JC goes to the Morley Hotel in London for a formal interview with Blackwood who, frustrated and disgruntled by the way in which JC has treated the firm, declines to rescue the writer from his debts by buying the copyrights of Lord Jim and the unfinished YOS, informing him that he is a loss to the company. On arrival home, he pas- sionately defends himself in a lengthy letter to Blackwood: ‘I am modern, and I would rather recall Wagner the musician ... Rodin the Sculptor ... and Whistler the painter. ... They too have arrived. They had to suffer for being “new’’’ (CL, II, 418).

June 6 (Fri) In London, visits Heinemann’s, exercising his art in ‘exploit- ing agents and publishers’ (to Garnett: CL, II, 424). 10 Reads Ford’s monograph Rossetti: A Critical Essay on His Art (1902), already seen in manuscript. Congratulates Constance Garnett on her translation of Tolstoy’s (1901), though he thinks little of the original novel. 1902 65

11 Galsworthy is enlisted to hammer out a scheme with Pawling to alleviate JC’s financial plight. Soon after, the former visits and makes him a loan. 19 Present financial negotiations and other diversions mean that ‘The End of the Tether’ is ‘all behind’ (to Ford: CL, II, 427). 23 A dramatic crisis occurs at Pent Farm when a large batch of manu- script and typescript of ‘The End of the Tether’ due for Blackwood’s is burnt when an oil lamp overturns; the material will now need to be recomposed from memory. (Najder, p. 323, justifiably casts doubt on the amount of copy purportedly destroyed.) 25 JC compliments Meldrum on his The Conquest of Charlotte (1902), now ending as a Blackwood’s serial. 26 Proposes to minimize the effects of the recent fire by writing 4,000 words by 2 July. Coincidentally, Gosse organizes a Royal Literary Fund award for JC and receives letters of support from Pearl Craigie and James, who describes JC’s work as ‘of the sort greeted more by the expert & the critic than (as people say,) by the man in the street’ (Portrait, p. 36).

July 11 (Fri) JC gratefully acknowledges receipt of £300 from the Royal Literary Fund. 15 of a visit to the Fords in Winchelsea, he at last sends off the second batch of ‘The End of the Tether’, a fortnight later than promised. The ‘Tether’ serial having now begun in Blackwood’s, JC persists in believing that 8,000 words will complete his task, whereas some 35,000 words await him over the next three months.

August 5 (Tues) The Conrads arrive home after their Winchelsea stay. c.15 JC is again late in sending copy – a small batch of only 6,900 words – for the September instalment of the ‘Tether’ story. 18 JC visits the publisher Hallam Murray to deposit the manu- script of Galsworthy’s The Island Pharisees (1904), which Murray later rejects. 28 Galsworthy pays a visit. JC writes to Garnett that Wells brought Shaw to visit some months ago ‘and I nearly bit him’ – other- wise there have been no visitors except ‘buzzing flies, fine large wasps’ (CL, II, 440). 66 A Conrad Chronology

September 4 (Thurs) Typhoon issued as a single story in book form by Putnam’s (New York).

During the month, JC toils at ‘The End of the Tether’, also revising the story for forthcoming book publication. Borys’s illness at the end of the month delays progress, although JC finds time to read the manuscript of Elsie Hueffer’s Margaret Hever (1909).

October 16 (Thurs) Desperate to finish ‘The End of the Tether’, JC goes to Winchelsea where, again with Ford’s help and after working three nights without sleep, he completes the story, which has now bur- geoned to some 52,000 words (Blackwood’s, July– Dec [YOS]). On receiving this final batch of copy – a staggering 19,000 words – a frustrated Blackwood has no option but to delay publication of the YOS collection until November and extend serialization into two further instalments, finishing in December. 17 Plans to read Garnett’s The Art of Winnifred Matthews: An Essay (1902). 21 By this date, the Conrads have returned home from Winchelsea. 23 ‘Nostromo’ is first mentioned as a possible title for a short story, ‘belonging to the “Karain” class of tales’ (to Galsworthy: CL, II, 448). 25 Having first thought of Graham or Henley as a possible dedica- tee for YOS, JC finally elects to dedicate it to Jessie. c.26 ‘The End of the Tether’ being now completed, the Conrads spend a week’s break with the Galsworthys at 4 Lawrence Mansions, Chelsea Embankment. In London, JC meets Meldrum, James Blackwood and other friends; he also sits for a portrait by Georg Sauter, Galsworthy’s brother- in- law.

November 5 (Wed) Returning from London on the 3rd, JC finishes revising proofs of ‘The End of the Tether’ and, after adding a concluding paragraph, informs Blackwood that ‘the story is properly finished as originally contemplated’ (CL, II, 450). He will soon begin correcting the manuscript of Elsie Hueffer’s translation of Maupassant (Stories from Maupassant, 1903), to which Ford contributes a preface. 1903 67

6 Writes to Bennett about his Anna of the Five Towns (1902). A letter to Galsworthy looks forward to attending a forthcoming concert in Chislehurst, Kent, (some time after the 10th). 13 YOS published by Blackwood (by McClure, Phillips in America, 25 Feb 1903). 26 JC and Ford have spent four days and a night shortening Romance to improve its chances of serialization (although it is never serialized). JC returns temporarily to The Rescue. 29 Writes to Graham about his collection of stories, Success (1902).

December 3 (Wed) JC’s 45th birthday. 9 Venezuelan revolution results in blockade by Britain, Germany and Italy. 19 Meldrum writes to Blackwood that he considers YOS ‘to be the most notable book we have published since George Eliot, and so do other judges’, adding ‘‘‘Lord Jim” and “Youth” will go on sell- ing for twenty years, I have no doubt’ (LBM, p. 172). Two days later, JC hears of Gissing’s high praise for the volume (‘I think him a great writer – there’s no other word’ [Portrait, p 39]). 22 Discontented as the year- end approaches, JC complains to Galsworthy of ‘Nothing done’ recently (CL, II, 466). Sends Fenimore Cooper’s ‘Leatherstocking Tales’ to Garnett’s son David for Christmas, thanking Garnett for his Academy and Literature review of YOS. 23 The Conrads leave for Winchelsea to spend Christmas with the Fords, where James is a visitor. There, probably with Ford’s advice, JC decides to set aside The Rescue and begins what will turn out to be his largest canvas, Nostromo. 31 Writes to Ford’s mother about how much the ‘bond of genuine friendship’ with her son means to him (Private collection). 1903 January 1 (Thurs) Returns home from Winchelsea feeling seedy, though looking forward to a visit from Galsworthy. 2 Sends The Rescue to Ford for his help and book- surgery, perhaps also symbolically clearing the ground for Nostromo, which has already been started and will dominate the coming year and 68 A Conrad Chronology

beyond; at this stage, however, JC sees it as ‘something silly and saleable’ (to Ford: CL, III, 4). 5 JC and Pinker make plans for the serialization of Nostromo, now seen as a 35, 000- word story to be finished at the end of the month. 9 JC’s response to a questionnaire on ‘The Books of my Childhood’ appears in T. P.’s Weekly (CDOUP): he refers to Victor Hugo, but also includes books enjoyed with Borys – the Grimm brothers, Hans Christian Andersen and Edward Lear. 16 The Fords arrive at Pent Farm for the weekend to hold a joint birthday party for Borys and Christina Hueffer. During the next fortnight, the first of the year’s many bouts of depression and illness occurs, with Ford invited to come and cheer JC up. 22 The first- known French translation of a JC work (‘An Outpost of Progress’) by Marguerite Poradowska begins in Les Nouvelles Illustrées (Paris), with a concluding instalment on the 29th.

February 4 (Wed) Resumes work on Nostromo, though still ‘low mentally’ (to Pinker: CL, III, 16). 6 Anticipates Ford’s help should any crisis arise with Nostromo, a possibility that sustains him during the coming year. A synopsis of the novel is now prepared for Harper’s and completion prom- ised in June. 11 Meets Ford in London at Gatti’s Restaurant before both visit Pinker and Heinemann. 16 Sends out standardized notes to a number of publishers, includ- ing the Blackwood firm, informing them that Pinker is now his ‘sole Agent for the conduct of all business relating to ... [his] literary work’ (CL, III, 19). 26 Has read Clifford’s A Free Lance of Today (1903). 28 Romance is accepted for publication in Britain by Smith, Elder.

March c.2 (Mon) On a visit to see Ford, JC is afflicted by severe gout and forced to remain at Winchelsea for the next fortnight under medical treatment and at a low ebb. Returns home on the 16th. 17 Still poorly and under pressure from his banker, JC asks Pinker to subsidize Nostromo for the next three months; it is now envisaged as a story of 75– 80,000 words to be finished in June. 1903 69

23 Back at work again, JC asks Ford to send him the Elder’s edition of Mémoires de Garibaldi (1860) as part of his reading for Nostromo. 27 Batches of Romance proofs begin to arrive, on which JC and Ford will work on and off until early September. 31 The Conrads meet the Fords and Olive Garnett at Hythe for the day. The two writers talk business, Pinker having visited JC the night before.

April

2 (Thurs) ‘My work is greatly crippled’ (to Galsworthy: CL, III, 29). 21 Ford comes to discuss Romance proofs, with Galsworthy invited for the coming weekend. 22 TOS published by Heinemann (in America as Falk, Amy Foster, To- morrow – Three Stories by McClure, Phillips, Oct 1903), dedi- cated to Graham. 24 Ford, Olive Garnett and JC meet in Gatti’s Restaurant in London where they drink to a rosy future for JC’s recently published volume.

May 5 (Tues) Clifford brings JC to lunch with George Harvey (of Harper & Brothers) to discuss publication rights to Nostromo. 9 JC invites Graham for a discussion about the South American set- ting of Nostromo; the latter, for many years a rancher and traveller on that continent, probably suggests a course of reading, including works on the Spanish Conquistadores as well as latter- day remi- niscences and travel narratives by G. F. Masterman, Ramon Páez, Richard F. Burton and Edward B. Eastwick. 13 By this date, Harper acquires the British and American book and serial rights to Nostromo though does not take the option to seri- alize the text; the company sells the British serial rights to T. P’s Weekly, but they fail to find an outlet in America. While pleased to have finalized contracts, JC also feels added stress, since, as he confides to Garnett, ‘not a quarter [of the novel] yet is written’ (CL, III, 35). 20 Sees Garnett in London. 21 JC is unimpressed by Marcelle Tinayre’s La Maison du péché (1900). 22 Interviewed by Clifford for an article on ‘The Genius of Joseph Conrad’ in the North American Review (June 1904). 70 A Conrad Chronology

June 4 (Thurs) Now expanding rapidly, ‘Nostromo grows; grows against the grain by dint of distasteful toil – but it cannot be said to pro- gress’ (to Galsworthy: CL, III, 40). Borys is ill in bed. 14 Accepts an invitation from Clifford, perhaps to lunch at London’s Wellington Club with admirers of his work, including Thomas Hardy, Edward Clodd, Frank Swettenham and Maurice Cameron. 16 Sees Pinker on business in London.

July 4 (or 11) (Sat) JC passes on to Wells a copy of ’s The Twilight of the Gods and Other Tales (1888), which he has recently enjoyed. 7 Estimates that Nostromo now stands at 23,000 words and, the next day, describes the cost incurred – he is jaded, suffers from toothache and is ‘dying over that cursed ... thing’ (to Graham: CL, III, 45). Tiredness and demoralization will intensify during the autumn and culminate in a minor breakdown in October. 11 W. E. Henley dies, leaving JC ‘under the painful sense of unex- pressed obligation’ (to the Henley Memorial: CL, III, 115). 28 JC’s first letter to William Rothenstein, agreeing to sit for the artist.

August 22 (Sat) Sends Pinker roughly 42,000 words of Nostromo (Part 1 of the finished novel), which is optimistically envisaged as half of the book, and describes it as ‘very genuine Conrad’, adding, ‘I have never worked so hard before – with so much anxiety’ (CL, III, 55). Despite feeling thoroughly exhausted, he also works to promote Galsworthy’s The Island Pharisees (1904). Recently collaborating with Elsie Hueffer on her Maupassant translations, JC has been ‘astonished at the Maupassantesque style one can give to English prose’ (to Davray: CL, III, 54). 28 Rothenstein comes for the weekend to draw JC, probably meeting Ford on Sunday. JC proceeds to put the artist in touch with Pinker.

Work on the proofs of Romance is completed in late August or early September, with Galsworthy present at Pent Farm. 1903 71

September 11 (Fri) The ‘atrocious misery’ of writing Nostromo continues (to Rothenstein: CL, III, 61), seriously slowed up from now until the year’s end by illness and depression. In early September, JC and Ford have a difference over what dates of composition to place at the end of Romance. 19 First of three letters to Wells conveying his mixed response to , a work that, in JC’s eyes, reveals an author ‘strangely conservative at bottom’ (CL, III, 66); later in the year, he reads another Wells work, Twelve Stories and a Dream (both 1903).

October Gout and severe depression leave JC in low spirits for the first three weeks of this month.

1 (Thurs) Still unable to shake off ‘horrible mental depression’, he finds some consolation in the forthcoming publication of Romance (to Elsie Hueffer: CL, III, 64). 2 Galsworthy invited to come and cheer up an ailing JC. 7 (or 14) Just emerging from recent ailments and harassed by debts, JC writes optimistically to Pinker of an uncorrected draft of Part II of Nostromo and reports that Part III now occupies him. 16 Romance published by Smith, Elder (by McClure, Phillips in America, 2 May 1904; unserialized), dedicated to Elsie Hueffer and Jessie. c.25 The collaborators send a presentation copy of Romance to James. c.27 Now staying with the Fords at Winchelsea, the Conrads return home by 2 November.

November 3 (Tues) Revolution in Columbian Panama leads to US– Panama treaty, by which time JC has probably met S. P. Triana, Columbian ambassador to Spain and Britain. c.4 With forced cheerfulness, he assures Pinker that Nostromo will be finished by Christmas, though soon complains of toothache and writes ominously to Ford, ‘The end of all things is not far off for me’ (CL, III, 74). 14 JC receives a gift of £150 from J. M. Barrie. 19 Has finished reading Bennett’s Leonora (1903). 72 A Conrad Chronology

29 Nostromo amounts to 581 manuscript leaves, only five leaves away from the fragment written in Ford’s hand (see December 1904). 30 JC requests Wells to send him Ilya Ilych Mechnikov’s Études sur la nature humaine: essai de philosophie optimiste (1903).

December At some point during this month, Ford may have composed – or, more likely, merely acted as amanuensis for – a section of Nostromo (manuscript pages 586– 604, a fragment of Part II, ch. 5) when JC is, according to Ford’s later account, afflicted by severe gout and nervous depression. The section in question appears in T. P.’s Weekly on 9 April.

1 (Tues) Now back in England, Roger Casement is invited – but cannot come – for a visit. 3 JC’s 46th birthday. 9 Still suffering from gout, JC works with little enthusiasm: he describes himself as ‘run down – stale’ (to Pinker: CL, III, 91). 17 Reads E. D. Morel’s pamphlet on The Congo Slave State (1903), finding its exposure of Belgian atrocities to be ‘absolutely true’ (to Casement: CL, III, 95); four days later, in response to Casement, JC expresses sympathy with the anti- Leopold move- ment but declines to join formally. 26 Has read Graham’s Hernando de Soto (1903). Writes to Ford’s mother, wondering ‘whether the collaboration is good for Ford?’ (Private collection). 31 A ‘disastrous’ year, JC exclaims in a letter to J. M. Barrie, whose The Little White Bird (1902) he has just read (CL, III, 104).

Asked by the Academy (1903: 628) to name his favourite books of the year, JC chooses James’s The Ambassadors and Wells’s Mankind in the Making. The first translation of a JC work in book form (TU) appears this year in Sweden as Friedlösa historier, translated by Karin Hirn and introduced by Yrjö Hirn, with whom JC has already corresponded in May 1902 (CL, IX, 86– 7).

1904 January c.3 (Sun) Casement, whose report on the will be published in February, visits Pent Farm at the beginning of the month. 1904 73

8 In London to see Galsworthy, whom he promises to meet at an international ‘festivity’ on the following Monday. 17 Partly to seek medical advice for Jessie and partly to be near Ford, who has moved to London, JC and the family take up residence for six weeks at 17 Gordon Place, , where they are near- neighbours of the Lucases. JC describes the visit as ‘a sort of desperate move in the game I am playing with the shadow of destruction’ (to Galsworthy: CL, III, 109). 23 Jessie has recently injured both legs in a serious fall, the begin- ning of a permanent disability. 29 Serialization of Nostromo begins in T. P.’s Weekly. 30 JC’s bank, Watson and Co, collapses and goes into receivership, leaving him with the prospect of paying off a £200 overdraft.

This London stay represents the high point of JC’s dependency on Ford at a time when acute financial pressures demand that he pro- duce quick saleable copy and growing despondency prevents him from doing so. With Ford’s help, he will also begin to juggle with sev- eral competing projects: Nostromo engages him during the day; a new project of composing semi- autobiographical essays (later collected in The Mirror) involves dictation to Ford at night; while he also finds time (again with Ford) to put together a one- act play.

February 2 (or 9) (Tues) Sits for a portrait by Georg Sauter, probably seeing Sidney Colvin later at the British Museum. 7 At Colvin’s suggestion and with Ford’s help, JC has written One Day More, a one- act drama based upon his 1902 story ‘To- morrow’, probably finished by this date (English Review, Aug 1913). Soon the play is sent to Bennett and Beerbohm Tree (for his official verdict). About this time, negotiations begin for placing The Mirror papers, now to be composed in tandem with Nostromo. 10 The Russo- Japanese War begins, when Japanese torpedo boats cripple the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. 13 Attends a Ford literary party at 10 Airlie Gardens in London, with guests including Hudson, Galsworthy, James and Garnett. There Olive Garnett hears JC announce, ‘I am at the top of the tree,’ to which James replies, ‘I am a crushed worm.’ 17 Associates himself with the W. E. Henley Memorial commemora- tion. 74 A Conrad Chronology

In late February he begins reading Kazimierz Waliszewski’s Ivan le terrible (1904).

March 2 (Wed) Finishes ‘A Glance at Two Books’ (T. P.’s Weekly, 1 Aug 1925 [LE]) on Galsworthy’s The Island Pharisees and Hudson’s Green Mansions (both 1904). By this date, JC has secured, through Pinker, the secretarial services of Lilian Hallowes, who will remain with him for 20 years. 4 A homesick Jessie returns to Pent Farm, leaving JC in London. 7 Apparently under doctor’s orders, JC goes for a two- day break to the Royal Hotel in Deal with Ford. 15 Mounting pressures over the last two months lead him to exclaim: ‘I am nearly out of my mind with worry and overwork. My nerves are all to pieces’ (to Krieger: CL, III, 122). 20 Now back at Pent Farm, he nurses Jessie, who is advised by her doctors to remain in bed for three weeks with her knee ailment and heart trouble. 21 A bout of fever sends JC to his sickbed. 27 Galsworthy comes to visit and offers help in correcting the Nostromo manuscript, with JC sending him a first batch on the 29th. 29 With Miss Hallowes’s month- long stay about to end, JC wonders whether he can afford to employ her for a further six weeks (she is, in fact, hired for the next six months). Multiplying medical bills force him to ask both Pinker and Galsworthy for additional funds. Wells writes to Bennett: ‘The Conrads are under an upset hay cart as usual and God knows what is to be done. J.C. ought to be administered by trustees.’

By the end of this month, JC has probably completed six Mirror essays: ‘Landfalls and Departures’ (PMMag, Jan 1905), ‘Emblems of Hope’ (PMMag, Feb 1905), ‘The Fine Art’ (PMMag, April 1905), ‘The of the Burden’ (Harper’s Weekly, 17 June 1905), ‘Overdue and Missing’ (Daily Mail, 8 March and 16 Nov 1904), and ‘The Grip of the Land’ (Daily Mail, 2 Dec 1904). He now turns exclusively to Nostromo and will later report to Ford that ‘almost full half of that book has been written in 5 months. From end M[ar]ch to end Aug[u]st’ (CL, III, 183–4). 1904 75

April 5 (Tues) At present, he feels himself in the toils of a ‘horrible night- mare’ (to Galsworthy: CL, III, 128): Jessie’s illness, financial difficulty, pressing deadlines and gout have all struck at the same time. 10 Dr Tebb pays a visit to check up on Jessie’s condition. 14 In London for an overnight stay, he lunches with the publisher George Harvey; visits the New English Arts Club to see an exhibi- tion by Rothenstein, with whom he lodges overnight; next day he lunches with Galsworthy.

May 4 (Wed) Refuses an invitation from Unwin to attend a Royal Literary Fund dinner. 7? Sends a first batch of Nostromo, Part III, in corrected typescript to Pinker. 16 Has started work on a preface to Ada Galsworthy’s translation of Maupassant (Yvette and Other Stories by Guy de Maupassant, 1904 [NLL]), which he completes in June. 17 Has sent Pinker another substantial batch of Nostromo, Part III. A suggestion by Pawling that JC and Graham collaborate on an article about the Port of London for one of the Heinemann house- journals, The World’s Work, comes to nothing, though the original offer is taken up by JC alone in October. 25 In London, where he tries to see Pawling to discuss the article for The World’s Work. 29 Pressed by Ford, now in the early stages of a nervous breakdown, to repay his £100 debt, JC can do little, but acknowledges that the two writers should share the payment for Mirror papers.

June 8 (Wed) Rothenstein sees JC and finds him ‘in a very bad state of mind, & ... very hard pressed at the moment ... his nerves are in a terrible state’ (to Newbolt: MDF, p. 7). With JC’s agreement, he immediately sets about securing a number of loans and on the 10th is able to send the writer £150 to cover his most pressing debts. He also asks the poet to contact Edmund Gosse, writer and Librarian of the House of Lords, with a view to his using his influence to persuade Prime Minister Balfour to award JC a Royal Bounty award. 76 A Conrad Chronology

22 Rothenstein writes to and Pearl Craigie to seek financial help for JC. 23 Murray sends a loan of £50 for JC’s use. 26 Gosse has had promising discussions with the Prime Minister about an award for JC and has lent him several of the writer’s volumes to read. Now preparing for his final drive on Nostromo, JC enjoys a Sunday visit from Graham when the two jointly read aloud from Mérimée’s Le Chat maigre (1879). 27 Again back at work, he laments, ‘I am tired, tired, as if I had lived a hundred years’ (to Rothenstein: CL, III, 147).

July Newbolt, Rothenstein and Gosse continue to work to secure a Royal Bounty award for JC, their hopes lifted by the fact that the ‘Chief [Balfour] is manifestly affected by the romance of Conrad’s life’ (Gosse to Newbolt, MDF, p. 15). Their negotiations eventually result in an award of £500 being made to JC in March 1905.

2 (Sat) Reads Hudson’s ‘The London Sparrow’ in Kith and Kin: Poems of Animal Life (1901). 6 Finishes ‘Anatole France I. “Crainquebille”’ (Speaker, 16 July) [NLL]), a review arranged through Garnett. 11 In London to see Pinker, informing him that everything is set aside to facilitate the drive to complete Nostromo. Another Mirror paper, ‘The Faithful River’, is far advanced. 28 Assassination in St Petersburg of Vyacheslav de Plehve, Tsarist Minister of the Interior, an episode later recalled in Under Western Eyes.

August 1 (Mon) Elsie Hueffer visits the Pent, asking JC to settle his debt. 6 Ford departs for five months of convalescence in Germany. c.15 Pinker is angered by a rumour (probably originating with Wells, who relays it to Gosse) that he keeps JC under stringent financial control. 18 Prompted by Pinker’s complaint, JC writes to Gosse, denying that ‘Pinker deals harshly with Conrad’ (CL, III, 153). A. J. and Ernest Dawson have paid a recent visit to the Pent. At this time, JC keeps in close touch with Elsie Hueffer about Ford’s worsening 1904 77

condition, diagnosed at the end of the month as a serious nervous breakdown. 27 The frantic build- up to the completion of Nostromo begins. After a tooth extraction on the previous day, JC goes to the Hopes at Stanford to finish the novel, the chauffeur- driven car involved in an accident on the way. 30 Finishes drafting Nostromo – the truncated serial version – at 3 a.m. and sends the last of the manuscript to Pinker, probably returning home later that day. 31 (and/or 1 Sept) JC goes to London to see Pinker. (Based upon JC’s own hectic letters, all datings at the end of this month are tentative and approximate.)

September For the first three weeks, JC revises the serial version of Nostromo for book publication, in particular amplifying the last serial instalment by approximately 14,000 words.

1 (Thurs) In London, JC discusses Ford’s present predicament with Pinker. 3 Dips into Mark Rutherford’s The Revolution in Tanner’s Lane (1887). 5 At Pinker’s suggestion, JC encourages Ford to send letters on German life that might be published in England. 9 In London to consult with Pinker. 14 The Hopes arrive for a short stay, followed by their daughter Muriel for a week. 19 Sends Elsie Hueffer a cheque as part- payment for Ford’s contri- bution to The Mirror. 24 Prepares to work on Nostromo book proofs while also thinking of a winter holiday in Capri. 25 Galsworthy arrives for a Sunday visit.

October 7 (Fri) Serialization of Nostromo ends. c.10 The Conrads depart for three months in London, where Jessie’s knee will be operated on, first staying at 10 Princes Square, Bayswater. 14 Nostromo published by Harper (by the same publisher in America, 23 Nov), dedicated to Galsworthy. 78 A Conrad Chronology

15 By this date, finishes ‘Henry James: An Appreciation’ (North American Review, Jan 1905 [NLL]), possibly begun since arriving in London. 16 Dines with G. W. Prothero, who asks for a critical paper for the Quarterly Review, a suggestion that probably prompts the forthcoming ‘Autocracy and War’ (1905). 20 The Conrads move to 99b Addison Road, Kensington, near the Galsworthys. 21 The Russian fleet, on its way to the Far East, mistakenly fires on British trawlers in the North Sea. (See entry for 26 Oct.) 23 For the following week Borys is in bed with tonsillitis, while JC begins post- Nostromo symptoms of lassitude (with breathless- ness and gout), his mood not improved by the recognition that Nostromo has had a poor reception from the early reviewers. 24 Jessie is examined by her surgeon, Bruce Clarke. 26 JC’s letter of protest about the conduct of the Russian fleet appears in The Times. 31 Nursing two invalids, he asks Pinker for immediate funds. By this date, finishes ‘The Faithful River’ (World’s Work, Dec [Mirror]). Despite receiving numerous private letters in praise of Nostromo, JC now acknowledges that ‘the public ... will turn its back on it no doubt’ (to Graham: CL, III, 176).

November 1 (Tues) Hudson sends an inscribed copy of the new edition of his The Purple Land (1904). 4 Rothensteins invited for dinner on the next day. 5 Sends One Day More for Barrie’s scrutiny. 7 Elsie Hueffer and her sister Mary come for lunch. JC’s guests delay the completion of a short story for a planned ‘Benavides’ cycle intended for the Strand, but not published there and later reshaped into ‘Gaspar Ruiz’. c.14 The Conrads give a large dinner party before Jessie goes to the nursing home, with guests including Augustus John, Lucas and A. J. Dawson. 22 JC is again pressed by Elsie Hueffer to repay his debt to Ford, though is unable to do so. 24 After lengthy examinations, Jessie’s operation takes place, though not successfully. 1905 79

30 Mounting medical bills force JC to borrow money from Rothenstein, who arranges an additional £25 loan from W. P. Ker.

December 3 (Sat) JC’s 47th birthday. 11 By this date, Ford is back in London from Germany. 14 JC accompanies Ford to see Dr Tebb. Jessie returns on crutches from the nursing home. 17 Visits the Rothensteins. 21 Recovering from gout and now looking forward to a forthcoming Capri trip, he makes vague plans to return to The Rescue, report- ing that Ford, now in better health, would be ready to help with the novel. The Rescue must not, however, divert him from the ‘new novel’ promised to Methuen.

Between September and the end of the year, JC completes three more Mirror papers: ‘The Character of the Foe’ (PMMag, March 1905), ‘Rulers of East and West’ (PMMag, May– June 1905) and ‘Cobwebs and Gossamer’ (Harper’s Weekly, June 1905). He now thinks of collecting the papers in a volume under the general title of Action and Vision. 1905 January 4 (Wed) Now preparing for a four- month stay in Capri, JC defends his previous year’s expenditures to Pinker. 13 Congratulates Wells on the first serial instalment of Kipps (1905). The Conrads depart for Capri (with Ford seeing them off at Dover) on a journey rendered laboriously slow and difficult by Jessie’s invalid condition, which confines her to a wheelchair, necessitates an accompanying nurse and means that she often has to be carried by porters. After an overnight stay at the St Petersburg Hotel in Paris, they leave next day by train for Naples, via Geneva and Rome. On the journey south, JC begins ‘Autocracy and War’. 16 Arrival in Naples after ‘no end of labour and ... expense’ (to Galsworthy: CL, III, 206), where JC writes immediately to Pinker for additional funds. Bad weather holds up the sea- crossing to Capri for five days until the 20th, when they reach the island in the evening and take up residence at the Villa di Maria. 80 A Conrad Chronology

21 Immediately asks Galsworthy to rescue his finances with a £10 cheque. 22 ‘Bloody Sunday’ in St Petersburg, when protesting workers are fired upon, leaving more than 500 dead. 29 JC welcomes a recent approach from France to translate his work and exclaims, ‘I thirst for international fame – I do!’ (to Pawling: The Conradian, 38.1 [2013], 152).

In Capri, JC hopes to take a break from financial worry and overcome creative frustrations in order to write at least 60,000 words, though both projects are exacerbated by a trip that turns out to be ‘a mad thing’ (to Galsworthy: CL, III, 208) – expensive, poorly organized, and fraught with misfortune. JC completes ‘Autocracy and War’ on the island, researches a Mediterranean novel, makes a start on Chance, but accomplishes little else – and appears to make no major com- mitment for the rest of the year. On arrival, one of their first visitors is , a writer whom JC befriends and whose work he will champion; JC meets other Capri residents, including Giorgio and Ignazio Cerio, and Count Zygmunt Szembek, an Pole whose experiences in Naples contribute to ‘Il Conde’. While in Capri, JC acquires a copy of Axel Munthe’s Letters from a Mourning City (1887).

February 3 (Fri) Has read Graham’s Progress and Other Sketches (1905), dedi- cated to JC. 5 Writes the first of several apologetic letters to Pinker (‘I wish there had been something of a hack- writer in my composition’ [CL, III, 215]), who becomes increasingly impatient with JC’s expenditures. 23 Recovering from the effects of influenza and acute insomnia, he decides that ‘Autocracy and War’ will need to be revised in the light of recent events in Russia, including – most recently – the assassina- tion by bomb of Grand Duke Sergei in Moscow on the 17th.

March 12 (Sun) Now attributing his ‘languid’ condition to the charm of climate and scenery in Capri, he writes to Davray, ‘I have done nothing. Absolutely nothing’ (CL, III, 222). 1905 81

23 Learns that he has been granted £500 from the Royal Bounty Fund, with Henry Newbolt and Rothenstein to be appointed as trustees.

April 3 (Mon) Painful toothache drives JC to Naples for treatment, from where, with the family, he visits Pompeii. Soon after, the Galsworthys visit Naples for a few days on their way to the Austrian Tyrol. 12 Still suffering from acute toothache, JC writes to Pinker that ‘This place is a curse to me,’ with three months ‘gone to waste’ (CL, III, 228). By this date ‘Autocracy and War’ is finished and sent to Pinker, though a first copy apparently goes astray in transit (Fortnightly Review, 1 July [NLL]). 23 Learns from Colvin that the English Stage Society wishes to perform One Day More in June. 24 An impatient Pinker has baulked at JC’s request for £120 to settle his Capri expenses; the angry writer now requests at least £40 to stave off the present emergency. 25 Thanks and praises Wells for (1905).

May 1 (Mon) Still seriously short of money, JC urges Alice Rothenstein to arrange for her husband to send £150 of the Royal Bounty award ‘at once ... in notes if possible’ (CL, III, 237). 5 Has by this date begun ‘Explosives’ (Chance) as a short story and a week later speaks of it as almost finished. 9 Receives inscribed copies of Ford’s The Face of the Night (1904) and The Soul of London (1905), the latter already seen in manu- script. He has awkward exchanges with Ford about the prov- enance of One Day More. 12 Relieved to be leaving Capri, he issues his policy for the forth- coming year to Pinker: ‘Short stories – is the watchword now’ (CL, III, 243). 13 The Conrads depart from Naples by sea for Marseilles (where JC hopes to see Robert d’Humières and Poradowska) and leave on the 16th for Paris. 16 Having assumed that the Royal Bounty award would be handed to him as a lump sum for his independent use, JC is shocked 82 A Conrad Chronology

and disappointed to learn that its payment will be adminis- tered over a period of time for his ‘permanent benefit’, with his debts overseen and managed by the two trustees, Newbolt and Rothenstein. He writes bitterly to Gosse: ‘The whole affair has assumed an appearance much graver and more distressing than any stress of my material necessities: the appearance of “Conrad having to be saved from himself”’ (CL, III, 246– 7). On the 20th, Rothenstein apologizes to Gosse for having exposed him to such a ‘terribly hysterical’ response from JC (MDF, p. 29). 18 The Conrads arrive back at Pent Farm. c.22 Leaves to spend a few days in London, where he sees Pinker and Colvin and, on the 23rd, meets Rothenstein for an awkward discussion about the payment of grant. JC responds positively to Rothenstein’s suggestion that he should also have a separate interview with Newbolt. Soon after this second interview, he has a meeting with Gosse, but is soon forced home by a gout- attack that lasts for several days. 31 Finishes tinkering with One Day More before the coming performance and by this date also completes ‘In Captivity’ (Blackwood’s, Sept [Mirror]).

June 1 (Thurs) JC angrily rejects Newbolt and Rothenstein’s suggestion that a solicitor be used to help administer the Bounty award. 5 In one of several letters to Newbolt laying out his financial situ- ation, JC informs him that he wishes to avoid even the slightest appearance of being a bankrupt and ‘the XXth century edition of Johnson’s Mr Savage’ (CL, III, 261). A sum of £250 allows for his immediate debts to be settled, with the rest of the grant being paid in instalments of £15 per month until April 1906. 16 A compromise having been reached, JC thanks Newbolt for his tactful administration of the Royal Bounty award; four days later, sends Rothenstein a copy of Lord Jim inscribed ‘affection- ately’ from the author. 21 Lingering gout prevents him from attending the rehearsal of One Day More in London, though he is present on the following two days. He has now acquired a tutor for Borys and a secretary for himself in T. F. O’Connor (until September). 1905 83

24 Ford is invited (but declines) to see the play. 25 One Day More receives three performances by the Stage Society at London’s Royalty Theatre. The Conrads attend the final matinée on the 27th, when the author is greeted by . ‘I don’t think I am a dramatist,’ JC concludes (to Galsworthy: CL , III, 272). 30 Has just returned from a visit to see Ford in Winchelsea.

July 4 (Tues) Garnett sees JC and Hudson at the Mont Blanc, the former looking well. ‘Initiation’ is now finished (Blackwood’s, Jan 1906 [Mirror]). 15 ‘Books’ appears in the Speaker (NLL). At the request of the editor of the Standard, JC now plans a paper on Lord Nelson to be published in an issue celebrating the centenary of the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October; he also works energetically to promote Douglas’s work. 19 Receives a copy of Newbolt’s The Year of Trafalgar (1905); about this time, also asks Ford to lend him a copy of Robert Southey’s Life of Nelson (1813) – both forming preparatory reading for his Nelson article.

September 5 (Tues) Peace treaty brings an end to the Russo– Japanese War. 20 After a week in bed with gout, JC finishes ‘The Heroic Age’ (Standard, 21 Oct [Mirror]). Meanwhile, ‘Chance simmers slowly on’ but progresses haltingly (to Pinker: CL, III, 280). Visitors dur- ing the month include the Hopes and the Galsworthys (each for four days), Ford and A. J. Dawson. 29 Albert Einstein publishes the first of his papers on the theory of ‘Special Relativity’.

October 6 (Fri) JC prepares to sign a contract with the Methuen company, binding him to them for his next three novels. Finishes a paper later divided into ‘The Tremolino’ (Tribune, 22– 5 Jan 1906 [Mirror]) and ‘The Nursery of the Craft’ (Mirror), which he probably takes to London on the following Monday. Although Shaw urges JC to write another play, the latter promises Pinker that he will now devote himself exclusively to Chance. 84 A Conrad Chronology

c.15 Finishes ‘Gaspar Ruiz’ (PMMag, July– Oct 1906 [SS]). 20 Recent illnesses and depressions culminate in JC’s feeling that he is ‘fighting with disease and creeping imbecility – like a cornered rat’ (to Wells: CL, III, 287). Has recently read France’s Sur la pierre blanche (1905). 30 After a ten- day general strike in Russia, the Tsar’s ‘October Manifesto’, promising such civil rights as freedom of con- science, speech, assembly and association, is issued; some days later, JC says that he is ‘greatly moved’ by these events (to Ada Galsworthy: CL, III, 294). 31 Jessie, now pregnant again, suffers from palpitations and will soon need medical advice in London. Her future physical well- being lies behind the evolving plan for the family to spend the winter in Montpellier.

November 2 (Thurs) Ford has read the opening pages of Chance. Enthusiastic, he bets JC £5 that it will sell more than 14,000 copies. 10 JC in London, misses the Galsworthys, and returns home. c.15 The Conrads go to London for a few days and stay at 36 Princes Square, Bayswater, where, about the 20th, Borys devel- ops scarlet fever and has to be hospitalized. Now committed to a longer stay than planned, they move to 32 St Agnes Place, Kennington Park, to be near the boy’s nursing home.

December 1 (Fri) Meets Ford. 2 Now realizes that Borys’s illness will prolong their London stay by some three weeks. 3 JC’s 48th birthday. 6 Ford presents an inscribed copy of his Hans Holbein the Younger: A Critical Monograph (1905). c.15 Begins a severe attack of gout, which lays him flat until after Christmas. 29 ‘An Anarchist’, probably written before the recent gout attack, is finished by this date (Harper’s Magazine, Aug 1906 [SS]), with JC now at work on ‘The Informer’. At the end of the year JC – faced by spiralling expenses and medical bills – receives financial help from Galsworthy. 1906 85

1906 January 1 (Mon) By this date, completes ‘The Informer’ (Harper’s Magazine, Dec [SS]). 3 Collects Borys from his London nursing home and accompanies him back to Pent Farm, Jessie having returned the day before. 4 Pens a short note entitled ‘My Best Story and Why I Think So’, choosing ‘An Outpost of Progress’ on the grounds that it aims at a ‘scrupulous unity of tone’ and has demanded the utmost ‘severity of discipline’ (Grand Magazine, March [CDOUP]). Borys has a brief relapse, with doctors again called in. 16 Has recently seen James and also meets Wells on the 30th. 18 Begins to organize the contents of The Mirror volume. 31 Reads Galsworthy’s The Man of Property (1906) in proof form.

February 4 (Sun) In London, visiting Galsworthy to talk about the latter’s new novel, which he plans to review. 9 Sets off with Jessie, now in the fourth month of her pregnancy, and son Borys for a two- month stay in Montpellier, arriving (on the 12th) at the Riche Hôtel and Continental in the Place de la Comédie during town riots.

Whether the result of creative lassitude, or the urge to diversify his energies, or a deliberate policy to rescue his finances, JC’s post- Nostromo period has so far involved him in a medley of smaller endeavours – short stories, Mirror papers, journalism and reviews. The past year therefore leaves him dissatisfied, restless with the lack of commitment to a major project and afflicted by what he describes as a ‘feeling of loafing’ at his work (to Galsworthy: CL, III, 327); he is also, no doubt, afflicted by such unfinished projects as The Rescue and Chance. In Montpellier, a new project emerges in characteristi- cally slow and erratic stages when, on 13 February, JC announces plans for a short story (called ‘Verloc’) that metamorphoses over the coming months into The Secret Agent.

21 Mainly written in January, ‘The Brute’ is finished by this date (Daily Chronicle, 5 Dec [SS]). JC sends the first 13 pages of The 86 A Conrad Chronology

Secret Agent manuscript to Pinker, though further progress on the new story is interrupted until 5 March while he arranges and edits The Mirror for book publication.

March 5 (Mon) Still conceiving of The Secret Agent as a short story of 18,000 words, JC assumes that it may be completed with one more batch of manuscript; discovering that his ‘money goes quicker than ... expected’ in Montpellier, JC asks Pinker to send £20 (CL, III, 319). 20 By this date finishes ‘John Galsworthy: An Appreciation’, a review of The Man of Property (Outlook, 31 March [LE]), followed by a three- day pause. 22 Complains to Galsworthy of ‘mental exhaustion’, though he adds that he has ‘learned to write against it’ and now accepts ago- nizing slowness to be part of his ‘method of work’ (CL, III, 322). 28 Work on Chance having been desultory in Montpellier, JC prom- ises Pinker that it will be a priority when he returns home. 29 Has recently read Ford’s The Fifth Queen (1906, dedicated to JC), which he considers ‘a triumph!’ (to Ford: CL, III, 324).

April 4 (Wed) Now expanding freely (to some 14,000 words), The Secret Agent becomes ‘a damnably complicated job’, although JC looks forward to finishing it as well as a possible short story ‘about a bomb in a hotel’ by the end of the month (to Pinker: CL, III, 326). 10 He receives the last instalment of the Royal Bounty award, expressing his thanks to both trustees, Newbolt and Rothenstein. 16 The Conrads leave Montpellier and arrive home two days later.

Proofs of The Mirror demand attention for the next two weeks.

May Having seen Ford during the first part of the month at the National Liberal Club and read his recent work, The Heart of the Country (1906), JC takes the family to stay at the Bungalow, Ford’s tem- porarily unoccupied house at Winchelsea, from the 11th to the 23rd. Ford visits at weekends, when the two men work on a ‘larky collaboration’ (Ford to Elsie Hueffer, 17 May) in the form of The 1906 87

Nature of a Crime (published under the pseudonym ‘Baron Ignatz von Aschendorf’ in , April– May, 1909). JC ben- efits from Ford’s help with The Secret Agent, as he has with similar subject matter in ‘The Informer’. Probably during this stay, he first meets Arthur Marwood, who becomes a close friend and, some years later, will be addressed as ‘the real Wise Man of the age’ (to Marwood: CL, V, 464). For Jessie’s version of this Winchelsea visit, see JCC, pp. 112– 16.

31 (Thurs) Anarchist bombings kill 18 people in Madrid during the composition of The Secret Agent. One of the source- books for the novel, Sir Robert Anderson’s Sidelights on the Home Rule Movement, is published this month.

June 2 (Sat) JC presses Galsworthy to take on a professional literary agent, arranging for him to meet Pinker for discussions; has recently been visited by the author and journalist Walter Jerrold. 4? After nursing Borys through a recent illness, he returns to The Secret Agent, of which almost a third is drafted. 24 The Conrads now plan for the birth of their second child, which will involve a move to London next month. Attempts to lend out Pent Farm to Dr Tebb and Rothenstein fall through.

July 4 (Wed) Lumbago prevents JC from running up to London this week. 10 In preparation for Jessie’s confinement, the Conrads depart for 14 Addison Road, Kensington, lent to them by the Galsworthys, who are leaving for the Continent. During the two- month stay, JC continues to work on The Secret Agent. 25 Recent visitors include Blanche Sauter and JC’s old Elstree com- panion, Agnes Sanderson.

August 2 (Thurs) Birth of the Conrads’ second son, John Alexander, named after Galsworthy. 15 Jessie and the new baby flourish, though JC’s own position breeds Sisyphean gloom: ‘I roll and roll and don’t seem to gain an inch up the slope’ (to the Galsworthys: CL, III, 350). 88 A Conrad Chronology

27 Receives a copy of Hamlin Garland’s The Tyranny of the Dark (1905).

September 2 (Sun) The Conrads return to Pent Farm on or by this date. 7 The Galsworthys call to see the new baby on their way back from France; Galsworthy has been reading The Secret Agent manuscript. 8 Graham’s wife Gabriela dies in southern France. 12 JC estimates that he has written 45,000 words of The Secret Agent. 15 Responds with mixed feelings to Wells’s In the Days of the Comet (1906), fearing that Wells may not like his criticisms. 19 Now readies himself for a final drive on The Secret Agent. 20 (or 27) JC prepares to send his benefactor of the previous year, Prime Minister Balfour, a specially- bound copy of The Mirror, inscribed with elaborately worded thanks. 25 Attends the opening of Galsworthy’s The Silver Box at London’s Court Theatre, where he also sees Garnett, Wells and Hudson, and stays overnight with the Galsworthys.

October 4 (Thurs) Publication of The Mirror of the Sea by Methuen (by Harper in America simultaneously), dedicated to Katherine Sanderson. Domestic difficulties delay the completion of The Secret Agent, now accepted for book publication in Britain by Methuen. 6 Serialization of The Secret Agent begins in Ridgway’s: A Militant Weekly for God and Country (US) and concludes on 15 December. 9 Kipling sends an enthusiastic letter about The Mirror.

Ford stays overnight in mid- October and asks JC to repay some of his long- standing £100 debt. The latter now works intensively to finish The Secret Agent.

November 1 (Thurs) JC receives an effusive letter from James about The Mirror. 2 Finishes drafting The Secret Agent – a truncated version – for seri- alization; it will require expanding and much rewriting before book publication. (See June 1907.) 8 Has read Wells’s The Future in America (1906). 1907 89

15 Post- Secret Agent fatigue deepens into a depression that will, for the second year running, soon send JC off to Montpellier in search of winter sunshine. 17 Offers a lengthy critique of Garnett’s The Breaking Point (1907). 25 (or 2 Dec) Reads the manuscript of Galsworthy’s The Country House (1907), looking forward to a meeting with him soon. 27 Expects to be in London and to see Garnett. December 3 (Mon) JC’s 49th birthday. 4 Begun in late November, ‘Il Conde’ is now drafted (Cassell’s Magazine, Aug 1908 [SS]). 10 JC in London to see Pinker, and again on the 14th, when he meets Rothenstein and Lucas, staying overnight with the Galsworthys. 15 Sits for photographic portraits by . 16 The Conrads leave for Montpellier, stopping in Paris to see Poradowska and Davray, and arriving in the Riche Hôtel and Continental on the 18th. 31 JC has begun revising a French translation of four of his short stories by Davray and Poradowska while also hoping to resurrect Chance as quickly as possible; he discovers an early Anatole France work unknown to him, possibly Les Désirs de Jean Servien (1882).

1907 January Now emerging from the toils of depression, JC begins to respond to the change of scene and climate in Montpellier, though this inter- lude is only temporary and will later be seen as the calm preceding a tumultuous storm. He enjoys some occasional reading, returning to his favourite French authors – Maupassant, Daudet and France. He also does intermittent research for his Mediterranean novel in the town library, takes Spanish lessons and frequents the Café Riche (whose female orchestra is perhaps remembered in Victory). The family make excursions to Palavas- sur- Mer, visit the church at Maguelone and attend a performance of Bizet’s Carmen. JC befriends a local painter, Louis- Charles Eymar, although apparently without telling him that he is a writer. Having lost or been robbed of 200 francs in a missing wallet, JC asks Pinker to send £10. Meanwhile, Chance appears to lie dormant. 90 A Conrad Chronology

8 (Tues) Sends a copy of Théophile Gautier’s Émaux et camées (1852) to Ford, to whom he reports, ‘Work at a standstill. Plans simply swarming in my head but my English has all departed from me’ (CL, III, 403). 9 Requests from Pinker a copy of his 1904 review of Anatole France, which he wishes to send to the author. 14 Reads Graham’s His People (1906). 15 Declines to write a preface for an edition of Melville’s Moby Dick (1851), which he regards as ‘a rather strained rhapsody with whaling for a subject’ (to Milford: CL, III, 408). 25 JC at work on ‘’, an offshoot of his Napoleonic inter- ests. A first round of illness begins with Borys’s adenoid trouble, which requires treatment. 27 The manuscript of Jessie’s cookbook, A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House (1923), with a lightly whimsical preface by JC (LE) is sent to Ford.

February 15 (Fri) Pacifies a growingly impatient Pinker with promises that Chance will be finished by the end of the year. 26 While revising ‘The Duel’, JC reports that Borys has measles and asks Pinker for £15.

March 4 (Mon) Borys now develops a mysterious lung infection variously diagnosed as bronchitis, pneumonia or possibly tuberculosis. 5 Ford presents a copy of his Privy Seal (1907). 13 JC reports to Pinker the need for a change of climate for Borys – a stay in Champel, Switzerland, planned for the end of April – and appeals for help in financing it, assuring him that lodgings will be cheap and that he will be able to work on Chance. 21 Accompanies two servants to Paris and picks up the family maid, Nellie Lyons, returning to Montpellier by the 23rd.

April 8 (Mon) Recent stresses leave JC feeling ‘beastly ill without being laid up’ (to Pinker: CL, III, 428). 11 Completes ‘The Duel’ (PMMag, Jan– May 1908 [SS]), now hoping to return to Chance. 1907 91

12 Has read the manuscript of Galsworthy’s play Joy (performed in 1907).

May 1 (Wed) Severe gout sends him to bed for the coming week and brings on extravagant depression; with his arm in a sling, he speaks of a ‘nervous collapse’ (to Galsworthy: CL, III, 435). 6 Looks forward to meeting one of his French translators, Robert d’Humières, in Geneva. 15 The journey to Switzerland begins, on the eve of which Borys catches whooping cough; he passes it on to his brother, and another harrowing round of illness starts. 18 From the Hôtel de la Poste in Geneva, an anguished JC writes to Pinker that baby John’s condition has worsened during the jour- ney, the family is short of money, and that proofs of The Secret Agent (not galley- slips as he had asked) have arrived. JC’s return to Geneva apparently reminds him of an earlier casual conversation with a stranger in the city in 1895 and provides the first germinat- ing idea for a short story later to evolve into Under Western Eyes. 23 The Conrads move to nearby Champel and the Hôtel de la Roseraie, where John and Borys can be isolated in an annexe. 25 Further complications arise when Borys develops rheumatic fever and dangerously high ; JC now estimates that they will need to remain in Champel for three more months.

June 1 (Sat) Suffering from gouty eczema, an almost penniless JC awaits funds from Pinker to undergo a course of water- treatment. 6 At work on revising The Secret Agent for book publication (which involves considerable expansion) and nursing Borys, JC writes to Galsworthy, ‘I seem to move, talk, write in a sort of quiet night- mare that goes on and on’ (CL, III, 448). 9 Doctors again visit Borys, who is now diagnosed as having pleurisy. 15 The Fords’ offer to come to Switzerland is gratefully declined. 24 Borys at last starts to recover after four months of illness.

July 30 (Tues) Contemplating the family’s recent ordeal, JC summa- rizes, ‘a ghastly time – from the 15th May to the 15th July’ 92 A Conrad Chronology

(to Galsworthy: CL, III, 458). Appeals to Pinker for help with his chaotic finances and exclaims, ‘No more trips abroad. I am sick of them’ (CL, III, 460). He will remain in England until his 1914 visit to Poland. He also informs Pinker that he wishes to move from Pent Farm into a cheaper property. Asks Wells’s permission to dedicate The Secret Agent to him.

August 3 (Sat) Making the best of tediously repetitive days in Champel, JC attempts to pacify Pinker with the extravagant promise that he will complete Chance and another novel within the next year. 5 Finishes revising The Secret Agent for book publication. 12 Return to Pent Farm. The search for a new house begins. 13 Agreeing to stricter curbs on his spending, JC devises with Pinker a financial plan for the coming year: he will receive a yearly allow- ance of £600 (to start 10 Aug) on condition that at least 80,000 words of a new novel are written within the next 12 months – a scheme that will increase, rather than lessen, pressures on JC. 15 House- hunting begins in Winchester with Harriet Capes, after which JC meets Rothenstein in London. 21 By this date, negotiations have begun to rent Someries, an old farmhouse near Luton (Bedfordshire). 24 Owns ‘a very interesting book on Rousseau’ (to Galsworthy: CL, III, 469), possibly Jules Lemaître’s controversial Jean- Jacques Rousseau (1907).

September 3 (Tues) On his way to finalize negotiations in Luton, JC sees Pinker in London. 4 Lunches with Wells in Hythe. 10 In London, JC sees Pinker and stays for two nights with the Galsworthys, while the family possessions are transferred to Someries. 12 The Secret Agent published by Methuen (by Harper in America, simultaneously). The Conrads arrive in Luton and take over the new house, with Borys starting as a boarder at Luton’s St Gregory’s School. 15 JC reports to Galsworthy that he and Ford have had another row about JC’s unpaid debt, with Ford now threatening legal action; pre- sent stresses upon JC cause a bout of gouty eczema later in the week. 1907 93

20 JC sends a copy of The Secret Agent to James. 24 Dr Tebb visits an ailing JC, who is not well enough to attend a performance of Galsworthy’s Joy at the Savoy Theatre. 27 Consoling Galsworthy on the bad press given to Joy, JC enthuses about (first performed in 1909). 30 In London on a flying visit, he rushes home to meet the Galsworthys.

October 1 (Tues) Responds admiringly to Ford’s An English Girl (1907). c.6 The young writer Stephen Reynolds arrives for a visit, soon fol- lowed by Ford and a Daily Mail editor, Archibald Marshall. 8 Finishes ‘The Censor of Plays’ (Daily Mail, 12 Oct [NLL]), writ- ten at Garnett’s request. 11 Urges Colvin to come for an overnight stay on the 19th. 15 In London, JC misses Ford but attends a lunchtime gathering at the Mont Blanc. 24 Informs Galsworthy (who has recently seen the Chance manu- script) that he works on the novel ‘convulsively as a jaded horse may be made to gallop’, hoping for a January completion (CL, III, 504). 29 At Garnett’s request, JC joins over 70 signatories in a letter to The Times attacking theatre censorship.

November 3 (Sun) The Rothensteins visit Someries for the day. 5 Spends the day in Elstree with the Sandersons before their return to Kenya. 8 Has been reading part of the manuscript of Reynolds’s A Poor Man’s House (1908). c.13 JC is cheered by Colvin, who stays for a week; Ford has also made a recent visit. 20 Cora Crane, on a sentimental tour of places and people from her past life in England, comes for lunch at Someries. 22 Returning home from a day in London, JC is smitten with gout and in bed until the 28th; he complains of achieving little since August and laments, ‘This trying to break through a stone wall is getting too much for me’ (to Galsworthy: CL, III, 510). 94 A Conrad Chronology

December 3 (Tues) JC’s 50th birthday coincides with a growing frustration with Chance, now laid aside yet again. Perhaps on his birthday itself JC begins ‘Razumov’ (Under Western Eyes) as a short story intended for inclusion in SS and anticipates a speedy conclusion. 7 Rothenstein pays a weekend visit, leaving JC a copy of his forth- coming lecture to the Birmingham School of Art. 10 JC attends a belated birthday party held for him by the Galsworthys in London. 25 Reynolds spends Christmas at Someries. Gout afflicts JC from Boxing Day until 6 January but does not prevent work on Under Western Eyes, now developing into a more difficult project than he has expected.

After sending Pinker three batches of Under Western Eyes in December, JC watches it inexorably expand over the next two years, while fre- quently anticipating completion and assuring an impatient Pinker that it is in sight. The ordeal of pursuing ‘the very essence of things Russian’ and unburdening a subject that, having long ‘haunted’ JC, ‘must come out’ in the novel (to Pinker: CL, IV, 14) is further com- plicated by the financial agreement with his agent that requires him to produce at least 80,000 words of a novel by 10 August 1908. By that date, he is not only held up with the early parts of Under Western Eyes but also commits to writing for Ford’s newly formed English Review, a decision that will delay the novel even further and sour relations with Pinker, to whom he is already heavily in debt. This deteriorating relationship is paralleled, in 1909, by a series of tense confrontations between JC and Ford which results in a decisive break between them in July. Following upon this breach, and after further tension between JC and his agent, JC severs relations with Pinker: upon delivery of the Under Western Eyes manuscript in January 1910, they have a violent quarrel (which estranges them for two years), with JC returning home to suffer a complete mental and physical breakdown. Of the period 1908– 10, he later writes: ‘Here I’ve been 2 years writing a novel which is not yet finished. Two years! Of which surely one half has been illness complicated by a terrible moral stress. Imagine yourself painting with the Devil jogging your elbow all the time’ (to Rothenstein: CL, IV, 299). 1908 95

1908 January Early in the month, JC issues wildly discrepant hints about the size and scope of Under Western Eyes. On the 2nd (to Pinker) he antici- pates the end of a story expected to be 14,000 words long; on the 6th, he offers an ambitiously detailed synopsis (to Galsworthy); on the 7th, the novel is described to a presumably bewildered agent as an ambitious ‘reading of the Russian character’; while on the 14th he reassures Pinker that Chance is still his main preoccupation and will be finished in July (CL, IV, 7, 9, 14, 22). At some point in early 1908, possibly at one of the Mont Blanc restaurant gatherings, JC meets the writer Perceval Gibbon, who will soon present him with a copy of his novel Salvator (1908) and quickly become a close friend; their two families also share fairly regular weekend visits and the occasional holiday.

1 (Wed) Thanks Methuen for sending a copy of ’s A Book of (1907). 6 Supports Ford’s application for a Royal Literary Fund grant. 13 In London, JC has another tense meeting with Pinker about his finances and existing debt, now standing at £1,572. 16 JC writhes under the tight financial guidelines laid down by his agent and protests at being made to feel that he is endlessly beg- ging for money; he tells Pinker that in order to survive he will need to seek loans elsewhere.

As a last desperate measure to protect the integrity of Under Western Eyes and, at the same time, meet Pinker’s request for saleable copy, JC deserts his new story in the later part of the month and dashes off ‘The Black Mate’, written in a week for quick magazine publication (London Magazine, April [TH]).

February 2 (Sun) Has recently met John Burns, M.P. and the Liberal Party politician C. F. G. Masterman. 13? Now recovering from severe gout and with ‘The Black Mate’ behind him, JC requests of Pinker that he be allowed more finan- cial leeway and a freer hand with Under Western Eyes, whose com- 96 A Conrad Chronology

pletion, he still assumes, is not far away. He warns him: ‘If I can’t have a free hand – time – for elaborating my work and freedom from interference I would just as soon stop writing entirely’ (CL, IV, 39). 20 Recent visitors to Someries include Douglas, J. C. Tarver, Stephen Reynolds and Mary Martindale. JC has recently read Ford’s The Fifth Queen Crowned (1908) and reread The Heart of the Country (1906). 29 Helps Douglas to revise ‘The Island of Typhoëus’, later published in the English Review.

March Temporarily rescued from last month’s financial crisis, JC proceeds to apply for a Royal Literary Fund grant, sponsored by Wells, Barrie and Galsworthy.

11 (Wed) Under Western Eyes is now envisaged as a story of 43,000 words, with JC having arrived at the end of Part I and, on the 17th, believing that he is a week away from the ‘last Chap.’ (to Pinker: CL, IV, 59). 14 Has received a Polish work translated into French, possibly Bolesław Prus’s Faraon (1905). 23 From this date, JC’s new story begins to expand freely and is for the first time called a ‘novel (?)’, with the question of its even- tual title raised (to Pinker: CL, IV, 62). 31 New difficulties with his work- in- progress suddenly arise upon the transferral of the novel’s action from St Petersburg to Geneva in Part II; at this point, JC writes bleakly to Ford, ‘I am stuck dead with R[azumov]. Inventions dead’ (CL, IV, 69).

April 2 (Thurs) Under Western Eyes now proves to be ‘horribly difficult’ (to Pinker: CL, IV, 73) and will continue to be so throughout the summer as JC struggles with recalcitrant material, writhes under financial constraints, and is forced into temporizing to Pinker. In the following seven months of gestation and composition, he produces only 27,000 words. 8 JC’s application for a Royal Literary Fund award of £200 is approved by the committee. 1908 97

21 In response to Pinker’s insistent prodding, JC remains blankly non- committal: ‘On the R[azumov] question I don’t like to be positive. You may reckon on my trying hard’ (CL, IV, 78).

May– July This period begins with several attempts by JC to mollify an agent increasingly impatient with his client’s lack of copy, with his mixed messages about the scope of his new work and apparent inability to meet deadlines. In May, JC promises a June completion, even while seeming to realize that the story has ‘run away’: ‘I can’t let you have Razumov yet. That story must be worked out as it is worth it’ (to Pinker: CL, IV, 81). Progress is halted during June by correction and revision of SS book proofs, and by poor health. By July, relations between JC and Pinker have so deteriorated that Galsworthy (who has visited JC on 27 June) is forced to play the dif- ficult role of ‘in- between man’, writing to each in turn (as well as, on occasions, to Robert Garnett) and, in particular, helping to plead JC’s financial case to Pinker. The second half of July brings Garnett to Someries to see the manuscript of Under Western Eyes but also another outright collision between JC and Pinker. In response to a letter from JC of 14 July, in which he bemoans his shortage of funds and the physical messiness of the Under Western Eyes manuscript, an impatient Pinker appears to have threatened to end their professional link. On the 16th, an angry JC responds that he refuses to be treated as a ‘jour- neyman joiner’ and indignantly asks whether Pinker will ‘drop’ him on their deadline date of 10 August (CL, IV, 91– 2). This breakdown foreshadows their extended estrangement during the period 1910– 12. During the summer, JC reads Ford’s Mr. Apollo and Galsworthy’s A Commentary (both 1908) and has received a copy of Gabriela Cunninghame Graham’s translation The Dark Night of the Soul (1905); he also agrees to look over Reynolds’s short story ‘Silly Saltie’.

August 3 (10 or 17) (Mon) Correspondence begins with Arthur Symons (another writer in the middle of a crisis), who sends the draft of an article on JC. 6 SS published by Methuen (by Doubleday, Page in America, 15 Jan 1915, with a specially written Author’s Note [CDOUP]), dedicated to Harriet Capes. 98 A Conrad Chronology

18 Recent reading includes James’s A Little Tour in France (1884). 21 Robert Lynd’s review of SS in the Daily News, describing JC as an author who, ‘without either country or language’, risks being perceived as ‘cosmopolitan and second rate’ (CR, II, 446), leaves the writer infuriated by its cruel insensitivity and may have spurred him into composing the forthcoming A Personal Record. 28 Now arrives at a serious impasse with Under Western Eyes: ‘I have it all in my head and yet when it comes to writing I simply can’t find the words’ (to Garnett: CL, IV, 113). 29 The Conrads leave for a three- week stay with the Fords in Aldington, where JC hopes to enlist Ford’s help and devote himself exclusively to the novel. An idea originates during their conversations for a series of autobiographical reminiscences by JC (A Personal Record) which might appear in Ford’s new journal, the English Review. JC’s added commitments, including his involvement with the English Review, will seriously hamper his progress with Under Western Eyes and further antagonize Pinker during the next twelve months.

September 2 (Wed) JC comments at length on the manuscript of Galsworthy’s Fraternity (1909). 18 Having indirectly heard of recent complaints by Pinker about him, a tight- lipped JC informs his agent of his new plans for A Personal Record, the first instalment of which is already drafted; he tells him that the new project will not delay his work- in- progress and demands his support, informing him: ‘If you are not disposed to [help] ... then my writing career must come to an end for I can’t pursue it under a hedge’ (CL, IV, 124). By early December, he completes the first four instalments of his reminiscences as well as a draft of a story that will become ‘Prince Roman’ (TH) and a brief book review – while work on Under Western Eyes is at best intermittent. 21 Returns from Aldington, now intent upon moving from his pre- sent Luton home. 29 (or 6 Oct) Miss Hallowes arrives in order to provide secretarial help.

October 6 (Tues) Finishes reading a volume by E. V. Lucas, possibly Her Infinite Variety: A Feminine Portrait Gallery (1908). 1908 99

7 Offers Pinker a summary of his reminiscences, describing them as an attempt to ‘make Polish life enter English literature’ (CL, IV, 138), a task made easier by his being able to consult Bobrowski’s two- volume Memoirs (1900). 8 Second ‘Reminiscences’ paper finished; lays Under Western Eyes aside to continue with the third. 9 Harriet Capes visits for the weekend. 14 Miss Hallowes finishes typing a clean copy of the existing Under Western Eyes manuscript (up to the end of Part II, ch. 4).

From this date until June 1909, JC achieves a meagre 22,000 words of the novel. Already slowed up by his work on the ‘Reminiscences’, its composition is to be further complicated by a simultaneous process of revision, particularly of Parts I and II, which involves the cutting of 9,000 words.

November Early in the month, Ford and the editorial group of the English Review come to Someries, where the first number is substantially put together. JC is persuaded by Ford to write a last- minute review of Anatole France’s L’Île des pingouins (1908) for the magazine’s inaugu- ral number (NLL).

3 (Tues) ‘I have led my life poorly,’ JC writes to Poradowska (CL, IV, 148). He has been reading the serialization of Wells’s The War in the Air (1908). 20 JC admires Henry Nevinson’s The New Spirit in India but is disap- pointed by Anatole France’s Vie de Jeanne d’Arc (both 1908). 25 Despite present distractions, JC assures Pinker that he will devote himself to the ‘last pages’ of Under Western Eyes (CL, IV, 154). The first issue of the English Review appears, with JC much involved until next March. 30 Galsworthy has read the clean copy of Under Western Eyes recently prepared by Miss Hallowes while JC recovers from a recent gout attack.

December 3 (Thurs) JC’s 51st birthday, with visits about this time from Hope and Harriet Capes. 100 A Conrad Chronology

9 By this date, finishes the first four ‘Reminiscences’ papers. 12 Acknowledges receipt of six volumes of James’s Collected Edition and rereads the preface to The American (1877). 17 Tells Ford that his payment for ‘Reminiscences’ should be sent directly to him (JC) and not through Pinker.

Mid- month finds him issuing a spate of promises and expectations to Pinker about a speedy conclusion to Under Western Eyes, even himself seeming genuinely to believe that ‘the end is just peeping above the horizon’ (to Reynolds: CL, IV, 172). Another picture emerges after a further ten days of gout and hard work when, left with an ‘atrocious’ temper, JC takes a more jaundiced view of his progress: ‘But how long that bone will be sticking in my gizzard I can’t tell’ (to Colvin: CL, IV, 175).

1909 January The early weeks of JC’s second year of struggle with Under Western Eyes find him in sombre and apprehensive mood, harbouring thoughts of an early death (2 Jan), suffering from the effects of medicinal drugs (17 Jan) and feeling anxious and overstrained. The month is not unproductive, with a small batch of the novel sent to Pinker (21 Jan), who is told that ‘Now every page tells, the amount done being over 75000 words’, the equivalent of 700 manuscript pages, near to the end of Part 2, ch. 4 (CL, IV, 189). However, resolute- ness soon gives way to stop– start rhythms of composition when JC becomes involved in moving house and embroiled in Ford’s domes- tic problems. The Conrads’ house in Luton having proved to be too expensive, JC asks Pinker to help him effect a move immediately.

February 14 (Sun) The Conrads move to Aldington, near Hythe (Kent), occu- pying cramped rented rooms above a butcher’s shop. During the move, JC stays with the Gibbons in Trosley. 27 Douglas escorts Borys through London and brings him to Aldington.

March 6 (Sat) Given help and encouragement by the Gibbons and Marwood, JC finishes the fifth ‘Reminiscences’ paper. New stresses 1909 101

emerge in the relationship between JC and Ford – due to the latter’s high- handed management of English Review finances and his marital problems. 6 Suffering from influenza, he will miss the opening of Galsworthy’s Strife; he has, however, read and enjoyed the latter’s Fraternity (1909). 24 The Conrads attend a performance of Strife at the Haymarket Theatre, staying overnight with the Galsworthys. Working on Douglas’s behalf, JC sends the former’s Siren Land (1911) to Lucas, the reader at Methuen.

By late March, JC is roughly at mid- point with Under Western Eyes (the end of Part II).

April 11 (Sun) The first of two crises this month occurs when JC confronts Ford on Easter Sunday and objects to his ‘mania for manag- ing the universe, worse even in form than in substance’ (to Mackintosh: CL, IV, 214– 5). 14 A translated version of One Day More is performed at the Théâtre des Arts in Paris. 15 JC now undergoes ‘systematic treatment’ for his persistent gout (CL, IV, 216). 17 His recent reading includes J. G. Huneker’s Egoists: A Book of Supermen, Garnett’s play The Feud (both 1909) and the first instal- ment of Reynolds’s The Holy Mountain in the English Review. 18 The Gibbons and Dr Mackintosh pay a Sunday visit. 26 Ford’s marital problems (caused by his affair with Violet Hunt) reach an explosive climax and involve the Conrads when Elsie visits and implicates Marwood in the Fords’ domestic crisis. 28 A distressed Marwood visits to discuss the situation. 28 (or 5 May) In partial defence of Marwood (who has broken off all communication with the Fords), JC writes to Ford, expressing his distaste for the recent ‘atmosphere of plots and accusations’ and warning him that he could well find himself ‘at forty with only the wrecks of friendships at ... [his] feet’ (CL, IV, 223).

Despite the month’s turmoil (and the gout it brings on), JC finishes a sixth ‘Reminiscences’ paper. 102 A Conrad Chronology

May 5 (Wed) Admires Gibbon’s ‘Afrikander Memories’ in the English Review. 20 Defends himself against Ford’s rebuke for not having received the American writer Willa Cather properly.

JC manages to compose a very brief seventh ‘Reminiscences’ paper this month, though he pays for recent exertions with severe gout, which demands regular treatment from Dr Mackintosh. Like JC, Under Western Eyes still crawls along at snail’s pace.

June The month begins with another severe attack of gout and depres- sion that keeps JC in and out of bed until the 18th, Dr Mackintosh visiting regularly with ‘medicines, bandages, lotions etc etc’ (CL, IV, 239). He is unable and/or unwilling to complete the eighth ‘Reminiscences’ paper for July’s English Review. Although JC defends himself against an angry Ford by claiming that the previous month’s instalment has brought his ‘Reminiscences’ to their natural close, he soon admits confidentially to Galsworthy that, in failing to produce an eighth instalment, he has defaulted on a gentleman’s agreement with Ford – a ‘very awful failure to live with,’ he adds (CL, IV, 254).

8 (Tues) Has read Graham’s Faith (1909). 12 Galsworthy has paid a visit, no doubt to discuss the turmoil in the Ford household, in which he too has been involved. The Gibbons visit the next day.

July 3 (Sat) Receives a copy of Symons’s London: A Books of Aspects (1909) and a manuscript of his poem ‘The Fires of Youth’. 3 (or 10) A distressed Elsie Hueffer, now separated from her hus- band, visits to discuss the latest acrimonious developments. 15 JC departs for a two- day stay with the Gibbons in Trosley. 18 Graham visits, followed by Elsie in the evening. JC has been pondering Galsworthy’s new play The Eldest Son (1910). 19 JC’s debt to Pinker now stands at £2,250. 22 Huneker sends two of his works, Melomaniacs (1902) and Visionaries (1905). 1909 103

26 Supplies Galsworthy with a short letter denouncing theatre censorship that he can use as evidence before a parliamentary committee on 12 August. 31 Vexed by Ford’s peremptory notice of his illness in the English Review and his subsequent accusatory tone, JC pens an angry let- ter to him, marking the decisive break between the two writers.

August 2 (Mon) Elsie Hueffer again visits, sharing the details of her unhappy situation. 7 The Conrads leave for a three- week stay in Wrotham (Kent), near the Gibbons’ home. 8 Reads Martha Jane Garnett’s The Infamous John Friend (1909).

With Gibbon’s encouragement and access to his ‘Russian notes’ (to Pinker: CL, IV 269), JC launches himself on a more productive phase and, during the next five months, completes the final 47,000 words of Under Western Eyes. Meanwhile, Gibbon reads the novel’s existing manuscript.

September 11 (Sat) Plans a meeting with Galsworthy on the following Tuesday. 13 After sending two lengthy letters to JC (included in A Portrait, pp. 66– 70), Captain Carl M. Marris, a resident in Penang and former trader in the Eastern Archipelago, visits the novelist in Aldington on his way to board ship from Southampton. His visit serves to revive JC’s old and lost memories, soon prompting a creative return to his Eastern material in TLS, a volume dedicated to Marris ‘in memory of those old days of adventure’. Marris later seeks JC’s advice on his journalistic pieces. 18 ‘The Silence of the Sea’ (on the missing ocean liner the Waratah) appears in the Daily Mail (CDOUP).

October– November During these two months, JC works with sustained on Under Western Eyes, arriving at the end of Part III on 19 November. Deteriorating health and morale accompany this last phase of composition. In early October, he reports to Pinker an ‘awful time during May, June, and July, what between disease, drugs and worry’ 104 A Conrad Chronology

(CL, IV, 276), and in November suffers from a feverish cold and mental exhaustion, feeling that unless the novel is soon finished he is ‘totally undone’ (to Rothenstein: CL, IV, 290). By 31 October, JC is close to signing a contract with Harper for A Personal Record, pro- visionally titled ‘The Leaves & the Years’, whose form, JC explains, involves ‘the recording together of the literary life and the sea life’ (CL, IV, 284– 5). The end of November brings a further cause for worry – the Conrads’ maid, Nellie Lyons, is confined to Folkestone Hospital with a severe illness.

December 3 (Fri) JC’s 52nd birthday. About this time (partly in an effort to raise money to cover Nellie’s hospital bills) he breaks off from Under Western Eyes to write ‘The Secret Sharer’, its return to a Far Eastern setting perhaps prompted by Marris’s recent visit (Harper’s Magazine, Aug– Sept 1910 [TLS]). He works with remark- able speed, sending off 64 manuscript leaves on the 10th and a final batch, with a number of alternative titles, around the 18th. The escape from Under Western Eyes has, he claims, had a positive effect: ‘No great harm done tho! Doing something easy has given me confidence’ (to Galsworthy: CL, IV, 296). 17 Writing to Rothenstein as if to ‘a second self’, JC, reverting to his gloomy mood, speaks of the isolation and sheer ‘torture’ involved in unburdening the novel (CL, IV, 300). A week later he describes himself as (like his fictional creation Razumov) a ‘tormented spirit’ who envies ‘the serene fate and the compara- tive honesty of the gentlemen in grey who live in Dartmoor’ (to Douglas: CL, IV, 309). 18 Another confrontation with Pinker occurs when the latter, angry that JC has once again marginalized Under Western Eyes, demands more regular copy, refuses his client an advance on ‘The Secret Sharer’, and threatens to cut off weekly payments unless Under Western Eyes is finished within a fortnight. 20 An outraged JC responds to Pinker, setting out his side of the case and demanding to know whether the agent intends to disown him altogether. He avers that justice is on his side – he is ‘not a confounded hypoc[h]ondriac in search of sympathy’ – and that he is supported by the testimony of ‘two honourable professional men’ (CL, IV, 303, 302). 1910 105

22 JC sends off Pinker’s recent angry letter for Galsworthy to see, now anticipating that he has 12,000 words left to complete Under Western Eyes. 23 The Marwoods, having recently moved to Stowting, become near- neighbours. JC intends to add 30,000 words to his ‘Reminiscences’ before they appear in book form; in the event, he adds only a preface, with contractual arrangements for what will be entitled A Personal Record beginning next May. 29 Under Western Eyes is estimated at 130,000 words: now stung into finishing it as soon as possible, JC is set to ‘slave like any- thing’ (to Gibbon: CL, IV, 311).

1910 January 6 (Thurs) After recovering from influenza at the new year, JC sets about writing the conclusion of Under Western Eyes, with its final title first mentioned on the 12th. 16 Colvin and Michael Holland visit for the day. 19? Completes up to manuscript page 1,300 of Under Western Eyes (near to the end of Part IV, ch. 3). 27 JC delivers the almost finished manuscript to Pinker in London (with the remaining few pages completed by 30 January). An explosive row between the two leads to a two- year estrange- ment, with JC particularly hurt by Pinker’s cutting remark that he (JC) ‘did not speak English’ (to Pinker: CL, IV, 334). 28 After staying the night with Galsworthy, JC returns home and, on about the 30th, suffers a complete physical and mental breakdown.

February 3 (Thurs) Jessie sends a telegram to Pinker: ‘Conrad alarmingly ill since Sunday[;] doctor will confirm’ (unpublished). 6 As described by Jessie, the prostrate JC ‘lives mixed up in the scenes [of the novel] and holds converse with the characters’ (to Meldrum: LBM, p. 192). ‘Gout everywhere, throat tongue[,] head ... Poor boy, he lives the novel, rambles all the time and insists the Dr and I are trying to put him into an asylum. He is not to be allowed the least mental exertion or to see anyone at present’ (to the Rothensteins: MDF, p. 49). For Jessie’s longer account, see JCC, pp. 140– 8. 106 A Conrad Chronology

March– April For these two months, JC is confined to bed, with both of his feet and one hand bandaged, and allowed to see only family- members and close friends, such as Gibbon (a great support at this time), Rothenstein and Garnett, who visits in April. In March, he celebrates being able to stand up for ‘the first time in six weeks’ (to Galsworthy: CL, IV, 321). Though still in bed in mid- April, he is at last well enough to tackle further pre- publication revisions to Under Western Eyes and undertakes some large deletions (amounting to approximately 18,000 words) in his working typescript, including several long conversations between Miss Haldin and the narrator and a conversation between the narrator and Peter Ivanovitch in a café. Batches of the revised typescript are then sent to Robert Garnett for correction and re- typing. The world to which JC returns after his breakdown is significantly diminished, now lacking Ford, Pinker and some of the close associates of the previous decade. Not until after 1912 will his circle really begin to expand and re- form with the appearance of a group of younger friends and admirers – Richard Curle, Francis Warrington Dawson, Józef Retinger, , Stephen Reynolds, André Gide and G. Jean- Aubry.

May 6 (Fri) Edward VII dies; succeeded by George V. 11 Still in bed, JC has finished revising the Under Western Eyes type- script, with help from Borys and Robert Garnett. 17 A ‘wretched convalescent’, he now feels as if he is ‘coming back to the world’ (to Galsworthy: CL, IV, 328) and looks forward to moving into a new house. 18 Begins ‘A Smile of Fortune’. 23 Resumes correspondence with Pinker, now addressed frostily as ‘Dear Sir’, telling him that the solicitor Robert Garnett will in future be in charge of his literary as well as legal affairs. 27 Social life starts again with a visit from Clifford, recently returned from Ceylon. 28 Dawson pays a first visit, bringing greetings from the Sandersons and in Africa; he also meets Marwood.

June 3 (Fri) Recuperation continues, with Marwood now a regular weekly visitor. 1910 107

18 JC has read Galsworthy’s A Motley (1910). 21 Goes to stay with the Gibbons in Trosley, while the move to Capel House, Orlestone (Kent), takes place; there, JC is driven around the countryside at great speed in the sidecar of Gibbon’s motor- cycle. Desperate to acquire extra income, he now accepts an offer to review regularly for the Daily Mail for a fee of £5 per review. However, he soon finds the task uncongenial and sus- tains the column for only three weeks. 24 Jessie takes possession of Capel House, with JC arriving the next day. 28 ‘I feel like a man returned from hell,’ he writes to Douglas (CL, IV, 345).

A Writers’ Memorial Petition sent to Prime Minister Asquith this month to urge the claims of the women’s suffrage bill includes JC’s signature; he also agrees to join the Academic Committee of Letters for the Royal Society of Literature, formed by Gosse. Receives a copy of Forum Stories, ed. Charles Vale (1914) inscribed by Alfred A. Knopf.

July 10 (Sun) Graham visits, with Clifford promising to come to Capel House on the 25th. 13 The writer (and future poet) has consented to ghost- write JC’s Daily Mail reviews should the need arise. 15 About this date, Symons presents a copy of his London Nights (1895). 16 The first of JC’s reviews appears in the Daily Mail – ‘The Life Beyond’ (on Jasper B. Hunt’s Existence after Death Implied by Science, 1910) – followed on the 23rd by ‘A Happy Wanderer’ (on C. Bogue Luffmann’s Quiet Days in Spain, 1910), and on the 30th by ‘The Ascending Effort’ (on George Bourne’s The Ascending Effort, 1910) (all NLL). 31 Notorious murderer Dr Hawley Crippen is arrested in flight to Canada on the SS Montrose. JC is asked – but indignantly refuses – to write an article for the Daily Mail on Crippen’s travel- reading (Edgar Wallace’s The Four Just Men [1905]).

August 10 (Wed) Through Clifford’s mediation, he has received an offer from the New York Herald to serialize one of his works, to which 108 A Conrad Chronology

he initially responds by offering The Rescue. Eventually, however, Chance is chosen for a serial that begins in , with JC soon writing to a fixed deadline. Receives a copy of David Bone’s The Brassbounder (1910), read earlier in the year. 15? After a supporting campaign by Galsworthy, JC is granted a permanent Civil List pension of £100 annually. 26 Thomas has recently visited for a couple of days. 27 JC enjoys regular visits from Marwood and Gibbon; he is now intent upon settling his debts with Pinker and dispensing with him.

September 2 (Fri) Finishes ‘A Smile of Fortune’ (London Magazine, Feb 1911 [TLS]), then turns to ‘Prince Roman’ (a draft of which dates from 1908, originally planned to be part of A Personal Record) and fin- ishes it by the 25th (Oxford and Cambridge Review, Oct 1911 [TH]). 27 Has read Dawson’s The Scar (1906).

October Now begins ‘The Partner’, which he lays aside and finishes in early December (Harper’s Magazine, Nov 1911 [WT]). For the next three months Douglas is in England and spends several weekends with JC, who sees the manuscript of Douglas’s Fountains in the Sand (1912). On one occasion, the latter brings Austin Harrison and Frank Harris to visit. Sanderson also visits on his return from Africa, while Harriet Capes stays at the end of the month. JC awaits a copy of Reynolds’s Alongshore (1910). In late October, he corrects English Review proofs for the first instalment of Under Western Eyes, a monthly obligation for the coming year. The month closes with the rueful admission, ‘Nothing done to Chance’ (to Galsworthy: CL, IV, 379).

16 (or 23) (Sun) Has read Helen Sanderson’s sketches of East African life, later to be published in Scribner’s Magazine. He also receives a presentation copy of Jean Mariel’s Appareillages: Poèmes (1910).

November– December Lack of purpose and energy makes the last two months of the year a fallow period and accounts for ‘three weeks in Dec[ember] without writ- ing a line’ (to Galsworthy: CL, IV, 440). JC appears to be more interested 1911 109 in Galsworthy’s The Windlestraw, Douglas Goldring’s A Country Boy and Other Poems, Garnett’s Hogarth (all 1910) and Mrs Henry de la Pasture’s Peter’s Mother (1905) than in his own present work, ‘Freya of the Seven Isles’. The militant phase of the suffragette movement begins with ‘Black Friday’ (18 Nov), five months before JC takes up Chance again. December sees the serial of Under Western Eyes beginning simultane- ously in the English Review and North American Review. On 17 December, Galsworthy stays overnight at Capel House, after which JC accompa- nies him back to London and from there goes to Luton on the 19th to attend Borys’s first communion service. By the end of the year, Symons has become an occasional visitor – his wife Rhoda observing that ‘Arthur has a passionate admiration’ for JC (to J. G. Huneker, 24 Dec).

1911 January For the next two months, JC works on ‘Freya of the Seven Isles’, a story prompted by suggestions from Marris. He also writes to Garnett (12 Jan) of his post- breakdown condition: ‘I feel as if I had some- how smashed myself’ (CL, IV, 407), anticipating a new and recurrent strain in his letters of the next two or three years: that he is past his best, tired with the uphill struggle of the writer’s life and has written himself out. This mood, manifested inwardly by a perpetual ‘nervous exasperation’ with himself (to Douglas: CL, IV, 487), and outwardly by lay- off periods alternating with spells of dogged composition, extends and intensifies over the next two years. After a visit to Capel House in 1913, Russell writes that JC ‘said he had grown to wish he could live on the surface and write differently, that he had grown frightened. ... Then he said he was weary of writing & felt he had done enough, but had to go on & say it again’ (to : MDF, p. 65).

20 (Fri) Has read and reread Wells’s (1911).

February 5 (Sun) The American poet and translator Agnes Tobin is intro- duced to JC at Capel House by Symons, who reads aloud his translation of ‘Crimen Amoris’ from Paul Verlaine’s Jadis et Naguère (1884). 15 Under the pseudonym ‘Daniel Chaucer’, Ford brings out The Simple Life Limited, with JC caricatured in the figure of ‘Simon Brandson’ 110 A Conrad Chronology

(born Simeon Brandetski), a ‘possibly Polish, possibly Lithuanian, possibly Little Russian Jew’, and the author of Clotted Vapours. 17 Supports W. H. Davies’s application for a Civil List pension. 28 ‘Freya of the Seven Isles’ is now finished (Metropolitan Magazine [NY], April 1912 [TLS]), after which JC hopes to take up Chance at the point where he has left it in 1907.

March 5 (Sun) JC enters a period when composition of Chance is slowed up by a fresh set of worries – Jessie’s worsening knee, financial dif- ficulties and approaching deadlines. Another pressing question concerns future secondary education for Borys, now aged 13. 6 JC reads the manuscript of Garnett’s play The Trial of Jeanne d’Arc (1912). 10 Reads Galsworthy’s latest work, The Patrician (1911). 25 Douglas arrives for the weekend to meet JC’s other guests, Agnes Tobin and Symons. JC sends a copy of Douglas’s Siren Land (1911) to Garnett in the hope that he can promote it. 29 Informs Ford that he has ordered a copy of his Ancient Lights and Certain New Reflections, Being the Memories of a Young Man (1911) and summarizes his present mood: ‘Life an awful grind ... and yet [I] must go on spinning out myself like a disillusioned spider his web in a gale’ (CL, IV, 434).

April 1 (Sat) Reynolds visits for lunch.

At the end of the month, JC returns to Chance, writing 12,000 words in a fortnight. Treatment to Jessie’s knee – which will involve a long stay in London – is deferred so that he can press on with the novel, now being sent to Pinker in small batches. Receives a copy of Clifford’s The Downfall of the Gods (1911).

May c.10 (Wed) Planning ahead with Pinker for the coming months, JC looks to produce an average of 5,000 words of Chance per week, though his hope that the serial can begin in the summer will turn out to be highly optimistic (it finally begins in January 1912). 1911 111

12 Symons visits Capel House. 17 In London on business. Writes to Unwin that he contemplates collecting his English Review reminiscences in a volume possibly to be titled The Double Call: An Intimate Note. 28 Graham pays a Sunday visit.

June 2 (Fri) Has received a Hudson volume, probably A Shepherd’s Life: Impressions of the South Wiltshire Downs (1910). Informs Douglas that he has been ‘working amazingly of late’, producing large amounts of Chance copy (CL, IV, 446). 5 Visits Elstree School, where Sanderson has become headmaster and where John is to become a boarder. 6 Borys takes the entrance examination (unsuccessfully) for Tonbridge School. Soon after, in mid- June, the Conrads stay with the Gibbons in Trosley while the drains are repaired at Capel House; on a day- trip to Dymchurch, JC catches a severe cold that he is unable to throw off. 19 Estimates that he has written 47,000 words of Chance (about a third) and optimistically thinks it to be half- finished. 22 George V’s coronation.

Thanks Thomas for a copy of his Light and Twilight (1911).

July 9 (Sun) Graham pays a visit. 11 Methuen writes to Pinker, wondering whether JC might be per- suaded to change the title of Under Western Eyes which, in his view, suggests ‘not so much of a novel, as a book of descriptive impressions’ (MDF, p. 52). JC angrily refuses, but concedes that Methuen may add a sub- title ‘A Novel’. 17 Agnes Tobin and Symons bring André Gide and Valery Larbaud to meet JC, with Gide leaving a presentation copy of his Isabelle (1911). Gide makes another visit in December 1912 and (from 1914) will supervise the translation of JC’s works into French. 18 JC visits St Augustine’s Abbey School, a private boarding- college for in Ramsgate, with a view to finding new secondary schooling for Borys. Reports to Garnett that he is ‘pelting along’ with Chance (CL, IV, 460) – though the momentum soon lapses. 112 A Conrad Chronology

28 Begins another dry creative season when life seems a ‘dead pull now all the way’ (to Galsworthy: CL, IV, 462); this mood persists until late- September, when JC confesses that in the preceding seven weeks he has written ‘only 4.000 w[ords] of Chance and 3000 w[ord] preface for the Reminiscences’ (to Galsworthy: CL, IV, 482). Plans are made for Borys to complete his education aboard the Worcester, the Thames Nautical Training College, moored at Greenhithe (Kent), with JC having an interview with the headmaster, Captain David Wilson Barker. 29 JC has been helping and encouraging Gibbon to complete The Adventures of Miss Gregory (1912). August 1 (Tues) Marwood pays a visit, soon followed by Dawson. 9 Garnett is apparently mistaken in believing that he has read the manuscript of ‘Freya of the Seven Isles’ ‘years ago’ (to Pinker: MDF, p. 53) and produces an angry response from JC, who, in outlining the story’s origins, links its germination to Marris’s recent visit (in September 1909); he also responds to Garnett’s criticism of the story’s tragic ending. 12 Douglas turns up with malaria and high fever, and is looked after for a week before going into Ashford Hospital for several days. He returns to Capel House for four days of convalescence. 17 Tension arises between JC and Dawson over racial issues in Gibbon’s Margaret Harding (1911), a novel set in South Africa and dedicated to the Conrads. 18 JC is interviewed by a New York Herald journalist, the interview later published as pre- publicity for the Herald’s serialization of Chance. 24 Through Agnes Tobin, the American collector makes contact with JC and buys the first of many manuscripts, starting with An Outcast, ‘Freya’ and the preface to The Nigger.

Partly to cover Borys’s school expenses, composes ‘A Familiar Preface’ during this month and the next for the forthcoming book edition of A Personal Record. September 22 (Fri) JC deposits Borys on HMS Worcester at Greenhithe, where he will be a boarder. 1911 113

23 First of several complaints that he has done little work on Chance since midsummer – over half of the novel remains to be com- posed during the next six months.

Visits this month include a week- long stay by Agnes Tobin, to whom Under Western Eyes will be dedicated.

October 5 (Thurs) Under Western Eyes published by Methuen (by Harper in America, 19 Oct), coinciding with the end of serialization, after which JC is in bed for several days. 6 On receiving a congratulatory telegram from Ford, JC summa- rizes his present position with dismay – no published volume for three years (since SS), much ‘savage exasperation’ with himself, and spasmodic writing ‘with long intervals of absolute dumb- ness. Quel enfer!’ (CL, IV, 485). 15 Composition of Chance now runs in tandem with revision of A Personal Record for book publication. 16 (or 23) JC asks Douglas for a loan of £10, his ‘nervous exasperation’ at this time no doubt intensified by the first notices of the novel (CL, IV, 487). Many reviewers are respectful, but unperceptive; some (including Garnett) vex JC by their stress on the author’s foreignness and anti- Russian feeling. Sales of Under Western Eyes will be poor in Britain (only 4,112 copies sold in its first two years) and America. 18 Laurence Irving expresses an interest in dramatizing Under Western Eyes; although JC gives his approval, Irving does not take up the project.

Receives a presentation copy of James’s The Outcry (1910).

November 1 (Wed) Despite continual seediness, JC presses on with the ‘beastly novel’ Chance, though with little enthusiasm – ‘I am sick of the pen’ (to Symons: CL, IV, 522). 4 Plans for next year include a volume collecting his recently com- posed short stories, its contents settled in mid- November (the forthcoming TLS). 114 A Conrad Chronology

7 William Maas, journalist and employee of the Daily Chronicle, visits; Maas is already known to JC as the author of ‘Mr. Joseph Conrad: A Literary Portrait’ in the Daily Chronicle (14 Sept). 18 Reynolds arrives for a weekend visit. 21 Suffragette riots outside Parliament, with 220 arrests.

JC’s recent reading includes Henri Ghéon’s Nos directions, Reynolds’s Seems So! A Working- Class View of Politics, Joseph de Smet’s Lafcadio Hearn: l’homme et l’oeuvre and William James’s Memories and Sketches (all 1911). December 3 (Sun) JC’s 54th birthday. 6? Writes admiringly to Garnett about his play Lords and Masters (1911). 8 Metropolitan Magazine (NY) has offered $2,000 for ‘Freya’, a foretaste of the large fees to arrive after the popular success of Chance. 21 Thanks Ford for a copy of his recent essay ‘Joseph Conrad’ (English Review, Dec) and for an inscribed copy of his High Germany: Eleven Sets of Verse (1911). 26 JC’s first extant letter to André Gide, indicating that he has read the latter’s L’Immoraliste (1902) and Prétextes (1903); thanks Jacques Copeau for a copy of his dramatization of (staged in Paris, 1913).

Visitors over the Christmas season include Hope, Marwood and Agnes Tobin. Gibbon presents a copy of his Flower o’ the Peach (1911), a novel turning upon the politics of race in South Africa and dedi- cated to the Conrads. Late in the year, JC composes a promotional letter for the New York Herald’s advance publicity for Chance: in a shrewd marketing move, he welcomes women readers, claiming that in his new story he is ‘treating ... [his] subject in a way which would interest women’ (CL, IV, 532).

1912 January For the next three months, JC works intensively on Chance, ‘writing MS for dear life and in a sort of panic’ (to Galsworthy: CL, V, 37) as he sends regular batches of 3,000 words to Pinker; by early January he has completed some 600 manuscript leaves. Pinker seems to have provided considerable support at this time, and on 16 January JC thanks him for 1912 115

‘the [telephone] conversation which has set ... [his] mind at rest’ about his ability to meet the coming serial deadlines for Chance copy (CL, V, 5).

1 (or 8) (Mon) The Conrads have had friendly social contact with Ford and Violet Hunt – JC’s first meeting with him since their breach in 1909. 3 A Personal Record published by Harper (in Britain by Eveleigh Nash under the title Some Reminiscences on about 22 January). 18 Sanderson has recently visited Capel House. 21 Preceded by much publicity, serialization of ‘Chance: An Episodic Tale, with Comments’ begins in the Sunday magazine section of the New York Herald, finishing on 30th June. 27 Colvin pays a weekend visit.

February 2 (Fri) Influenza in the family prevents JC from accepting an invi- tation to visit Ford and Violet Hunt. It does not, however, pre- vent him from making his final drive on Chance: as he describes it to Douglas on the 6th, he is ‘jammed hard against the end of that bally novel’ (CL, V, 18).

March 8 (Fri) Now in ‘the throes[,] the agonies and the deliriums of a book- end’ (to Elsie Hueffer: CL, V, 27), JC has found relief in recent visits from Gibbon and Reynolds. Sends a batch of 3,000 words of Chance to Pinker, bringing the total number of manu- script leaves to 989. 25 Finishes drafting Chance at 3 a.m. Taking the last few manuscript pages to London, he lunches with Pinker and discusses future plans; in the late afternoon visits Austin Harrison’s office to try to persuade him to take Chance as a serial for the English Review. Harrison has refused by 18 April. 27 The month closes with a visit from Marwood and an opportunity to read Galsworthy’s play, The Pigeon (1912). 30 The Conrads leave for Trosley to cheer up Gibbon, who is at pre- sent depressed.

Agrees to help Reynolds select the contents of his How ’Twas: Short Stories & Small Travels, to be published in June and dedicated to the Conrads. Eden Phillpotts sends an inscribed copy of his play 116 A Conrad Chronology

The Forest on the Hill (1912). At the end of the month, JC resumes normal relations with Pinker, so ending their two- year breach.

April At an early point in the month, sends an extra 1,400 words of Chance to Pinker: intended to close the novel, the supplement ‘makes a “nicer” ending’ for the reader (CL, V, 49).

1 (Mon) After finishing Chance, JC is ‘stupefied for a fortnight’ (to Gide: CL, V, 53), suffering from neuralgia and insomnia. 9 Has read Dawson’s Le Nègre aux États- Unis (1912). 14 Compliments Graham on Charity (1912). Late at night the Titanic disaster occurs. 16 In London, JC visits Perriton Maxwell, editor of Nash’s Magazine in an attempt (unsuccessful) to place a proposed article on the Titanic disaster with a New York daily. Eventually published elsewhere, ‘Some Reflections, Seamanlike and Otherwise, on the Loss of the Titanic’ is finished by the 25th, when JC offers to be at the Adelphi Hotel to read proofs (English Review, May [NLL]). Upset by the Titanic disaster on general grounds, JC is also personally affected, since the ‘Karain’ manuscript, on its way to Quinn, sinks with the ship. 20 Visits Rothenstein in a London nursing home. 22 Still expecting Suspense to be his next major novel and also with plans to produce a sequel to The Mirror, JC begins a short story (‘Dollars’) which will characteristically outrun its original limits to become Victory. For the next six months, he repeatedly antici- pates the imminent completion of ‘Dollars’, not acknowledging until October that it is destined to be a full- length novel.

May 2 (Thurs) Board of Trade Inquiry into the Titanic disaster begins in London (until 3 July). 11 Speculates to Pinker that his new ‘Dollars’ story may run to 12,000 words – or even 30,000. 16 Thanks Edwin Björkman for a copy of his article ‘Joseph Conrad, a Master of Literary Color’, American Review of Reviews (May). 19 Victory is still ‘simmering’, though little has been written recently (to Pinker: CL, V, 67). 27 Reads Constance Garnett’s translation of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (1912), commenting: ‘... he is too Russian for 1912 117

me. It sounds to me like some fierce mouthings from prehistoric ages’ (to Garnett: CL, V, 70). 30 Sends a first typescript batch of Victory to Pinker, now foreseeing a story of 18,000 words. Recent visitors include Colvin and party, Symons, Gibbon, Hope and John Mavrogordato, assistant editor of the English Review.

June– July Victory, described as ‘the story of Mr G. Berg [Heyst]’, continues to grow slowly, with JC now ‘reading a lot’ in connection with it (to Pinker: CL, V, 73, 80). Towards mid- June, he breaks off to write a sequel to his first Titanic article, ‘Certain Aspects of the Admirable Inquiry into the Loss of the Titanic’ (English Review, July [NLL]), in which he acerbically reviews the findings of the Board of Trade Inquiry, now nearing its end. The correction of proofs for the English book edition of TLS extends over much of this period, with JC sending the finished proofs to Pinker around the 6th of July. Like Lord Jim and Under Western Eyes, Victory begins to grow inexorably, as JC sends regular batches to his agent’s office. On 19 July, JC receives his first approach from a film company, when the French- based Pathé Frères Cinema Limited invites him to consider allowing some of his stories and novels to be adapted for film. At the end of the month, Symons supplies a short stanza, beginning ‘Life is a tragic folly’, for use as an in TLS. On 26 July, the Conrads join up with the Gibbons to attend a prize- giving aboard HMS Worcester in Greenhithe. On 29 July, JC thanks H. M. Tomlinson for his gift of Reed’s House Flags (1912). Visitors during the period include Dorothea Mackellar, the Australian poet.

August 13 (Tues) Purchases his first car, the ‘puffer’, a second- hand Cadillac, described by James as ‘the most dazzling element for me in the whole of your rosy legend’ (Portrait, p. 90); next day Pinker visits. 18 Dawson visits and reads aloud from his unfinished ‘The Sin’, which JC later helps to shorten. The French poet St- John Perse, another visitor during the summer, meets Hudson and Symons at Capel House. 26 JC takes Dawson to meet Pinker, after which both go to the English Review office and then to Dawson’s Place lodgings. 118 A Conrad Chronology

30 Thanks Reynolds for a copy of his ‘Joseph Conrad and Sea Fiction’ (Quarterly Review, July).

Complaints about creeping illness and depression begin in late August and persist into the autumn, coinciding with a period of fal- tering progress on Victory. By early October, JC describes himself as feeling like ‘a half crushed worm’ (to Pinker: CL, V, 111).

September 3 (Tues) Galsworthy having recently visited, JC makes an abortive start on Suspense in expectation that it will be the next project after Victory. 17 Checks the final corrected proofs of TLS and returns them to Dent. 20 The Conrads visit the Gibbons in Trosley and then proceed to the Hopes, returning on the 23rd.

October 3 (Thurs) JC feels seedy after four days in bed with gout. 7 With the opening of Part II, ch. 5 (or 28,000 words) of Victory now finished, JC describes it as a ‘novel’ for the first time and pens a synopsis for Pinker to take with him on his forthcoming trip to America; he assures his agent that the ‘big’ Mediterranean novel has not been forgotten (CL, V, 113, 114). 12 The American man- of- letters J. G. Huneker visits to interview JC for the New York Times. 14 TLS published by Dent (by Hodder & Stoughton, Doran in America, 3 Dec), dedicated to Captain C. M. Marris. 20 Tea- time visit with Dawson to the London Embankment home of Lord Plymouth.

This month, Max Beerbohm’s parody of JC’s ‘The Lagoon’ appears in .

November 2 (Sat) JC expects Victory – now planned as a ‘short novel’ – to be finished before Christmas (to Pinker: CL, V, 126). He con- gratulates Galsworthy on his Inn of Tranquillity: Studies and Essays (1912). 1912 119

3 Dawson visits and finds Harriet Capes at Capel House. 6 JC’s first letter to Richard Curle, whom he has recently met at the Mont Blanc, thanking him for a copy of his Shadows out of the Crowd (1912). 7 The Times publishes JC’s letter on the progress of the First Balkan War (which has begun in the previous month). This letter prompts the editor of Daily News and Leader to ask for an expanded version, which is published in the evening edition of 11 November (p. 6). The two short pieces will later be collected as ‘The Future of Constantinople’ in LE. 10 William Blackwood dies. 17 Bennett has contacted JC about a young Pole, Józef Hieronim Retinger, who wishes to meet him. When Retinger and his wife Otolia call at Capel House, the former presents JC with a copy of his Histoire de la littérature française du romantisme à nos jours (1911); the Retingers and Conrads soon become close friends. 19 The Conrads attend a piano recital by the American composer John Powell at London’s Æolian Hall, staying overnight to see the Rothensteins and Garnett. Gout cuts short JC’s visit and pre- vents him from attending Colvin’s memorial dinner. Meanwhile, he awaits a novel- competition which he will co- judge.

December 1 (Sun) William Maas visits. 3 JC’s 55th birthday. Completes ‘A Friendly Place for Sailors’ (Daily Mail, 10 December; later ‘A Friendly Place’ [NLL]), a note written in praise of the London Sailors’ Home and designed to publicize its fund- raising campaign. c.4 Victory has now reached approximately 40,000 words. 6 Curle, later to become a devoted friend, pays a first weekend visit to Capel House. c.23 Finishes ‘The Inn of the Two Witches: A Find’ (PMMag, March 1913 [WT]). Work on Victory continues, with JC repeat- edly expecting to finish it soon – 18 months before actual completion. 24 Demurs at Edith Wharton’s suggestion that he should translate ‘The Secret Sharer’ into French. 28 Gide arrives at Capel House for an overnight stay, bringing a Meccano set for John. 120 A Conrad Chronology

Facial neuralgia and other ailments cause JC much pain over the Christmas period and persist into January.

1913 January 1 (Wed) (or 2) Thanks Gide for sending him some works by Elémir Bourges, including Les Oiseaux s’envolent et les fleurs tombent (1893). 14 The Conrads move to nearby Page Farm (until the 27th) while the drains are repaired at Capel House. Douglas is invited to visit them there on the coming Sunday. 22 Despite painful neuralgia, JC in London visiting Pinker, J. M. Dent and Charles Sarolea, editor of Everyman magazine, with a view to seeking serial placement for Chance in Britain. 27 Still speculating about the completion date of Victory, contem- plates The Man in the Moon as a possible title for his novel which, he assures Pinker, is ‘nothing second-class’ (CL, V, 168).

February 6 (Thurs) Has read Jean Masbrenier’s Pierre Loti, biographie– critique (1909) and L’Enseignement de Goethe (1912), claiming never to have read a line of Goethe’s. 9 JC’s debts now stand at less than £600. 13 The quest to find a British editor willing to serialize Chance con- tinues to be unsuccessful – the latest refusal comes from J. M. Dent, who, though a great admirer of the novel, cannot conceive how it can be shaped and divided into serial instalments. 19 JC begins a running dispute with Methuen over Chance and other long- term contractual obligations. 20 Again short of cash, JC anticipates both a new short story, ‘the real Dollars tale’ (‘Because of the Dollars’), and the imminent completion of Victory; he also apologizes to Pinker for a period of ‘diminished production’ due to recent illnesses (CL, V, 181).

March 16 (Sun) JC has shortened Dawson’s ‘The Sin’ (1913), which he also helps to promote. 27 Ford again requests repayment of JC’s old debt to him, now 10 years old; the latter cannot at present settle it and pleads for more time. 1913 121

c.28 Pinker brings JC to lunch with F. N. Doubleday, who broaches the subject of a limited collected edition of JC’s works; Alfred Knopf will also pursue the project with him in July. 30 Thanks André Ruyters for a copy of his Le Mauvais riche (1907).

Family illness causes anxiety throughout the month, with Borys laid up in the school infirmary and John out of sorts.

April 4 (Fri) Recovering from influenza, the Conrads are visited by the Galsworthys, who find JC looking tired and worn; JC approaches Galsworthy to be an executor of his will. 12 Finishes reading Poradowska’s Hors du foyer (1913). 13 The Retingers, the Gibbons, Colvin and Douglas make a Sunday visit to Capel House. 22 JC summarizes the year so far as ‘a ghastly 3 months of coughs and sneezes and groans’ (to Symons: CL, V, 217). 24 Prompted by an enquiry from the actor– manager Sir George Alexander, JC visits Gibbon to explore possibilities of collabo- rating on a play. For the next three weeks, work on Victory runs in tandem with JC’s correction of Chance proofs.

May 3 (Sat) Again visits Gibbon in order to discuss their play – a project that comes to nothing. 17 Dawson visits, joined by Colvin and other friends. 30 Finishes most of the extensive revision of Chance for book pub- lication, making substantial cuts to the New York Herald serial version. Some rewriting continues into June, with an epigraph suggested later by Marwood.

June 1 (Sun) Describes Chance as ‘the biggest piece of work I’ve done since Lord Jim’ (to Pinker: CL, V, 229). 16 JC visits Symons in nearby Wittersham. c.19 Thanks Huneker for a copy of his The Pathos of Distance: A Book of a Thousand and One Moments (1913). 23 In London to see Pinker, he also attends a meeting of the Fresh Air Art Society, of which Dawson is a member, though JC neither 122 A Conrad Chronology

joins nor agrees with its fundamental tenet of countering degen- eration in modern culture by pursuing forms of Art that seek ‘the Fresh Air of Health and the Clear Light of Truth’. 29 Curle visits and is given permission to write a critical work on JC, the future Joseph Conrad: A Study (1914). Other guests at the end of the month include the Hopes, Dawson and Otolia Retinger.

July 2 (Wed) Finishes reading (in proof form) Sarah Morgan Dawson’s A Confederate Girl’s Diary (1913), edited by Dawson. 7? Reaches Part III, ch. 4 of Victory. 12 The Conrads spend the weekend with the Gibbons in Trosley and then the Hopes, returning on the 15th. 16 JC in London to see Pinker and Curle, whose planned mono- graph he further encourages. 22 Again in London for a business meeting with Pinker. 26 JC is now laid low by severe gout. 30 Victory is ‘hung up again’ (to Pinker: CL, V, 264), with JC optimis- tically expecting to finish it in six weeks.

During midsummer, Marwood and JC work on the manuscript of E. L. Grant Watson’s first novel, Where Bonds are Loosed (1914) and will meet him for discussions in October; according to Watson, the pair read the manuscript several times and make 31 pages of notes.

August 2 (Sat) In bed suffering from gout for the past week and having written little for over a month, JC is gloomy and depressed. At mid- August, he groans, ‘Pen, ink, paper – unutterable futilities; and I gaze at the sunshine itself with a jaundiced eye’ (to Dawson: CL, V, 271). 5 (or 7) Lady Ottoline Morrell visits for lunch. 21 JC is roughly halfway though Victory (660 manuscript pages, up to mid- point of Part III, ch. 8, are in Pinker’s hands), though the novel has been ‘jammed for six weeks ... all worry and no work’ (to Pinker: CL, V, 282).

September 2 (Tues) Again just out of his sick- bed, JC feels seedy and stale though has managed to revise portions of Victory typescript. 1913 123

10 With an introduction from Lady Morrell, the philosopher Bertrand Russell has a first meeting with JC, the latter responding to his guest with ‘unusual talkativeness’ and apologizing for his ‘fatuous egotism’ (to Russell: CL, V, 282– 3). 15 JC has now corrected the 650- page typescript of Victory and returns to fresh composition on the novel. 17 Visits Russell in Cambridge for an overnight stay. Chance, due to appear in book form, is delayed by a binders’ strike at Methuen, causing JC to feel anxious and insecure; some 50 copies survive with the original 1913 title- page. 19 With Borys, makes an overnight visit to the Gibbons at Trosley. 20 At the Cadbys’ studio for a photographic session. 26 Visits an ailing Marwood. 27 Symons and the artist Augustus John come for lunch, followed by Curle the next day.

October 1 (Wed) The Conrads stay in rooms in a farmhouse near the Gibbons’ Trosley home for a few days while Capel House is again under repair. 21 Another visit to the Gibbons, whose daughter is critically ill. 24 Has read the manuscript of Dawson’s The Grand Elixir (re- titled The Green Moustache [1925]). 27 Pinker lunches at Capel House when JC’s gout prevents him from leaving home. 31 Work on Victory (of which roughly two- thirds is written) is inter- rupted for three months when, on impulse, JC begins a novella, ‘The Assistant’, finally titled ‘The Planter of Malata’ and follows it with a short story: ‘It will do me good to finish something and I will go back to the novel with a better heart’ (to Pinker: CL, V, 299).

November 1 (Sat) Thanks Edward Thomas for an inscribed copy of his Walter Pater: A Critical Study (1913), dedicated to JC. 6 The Conrads read a draft of Curle’s chapter ‘Conrad’s Women’ from his forthcoming book. 11 Their younger son John falls ill with a mysterious high fever for two days, requiring Jessie’s nursing and interrupting her typing. 13 Dawson expected for an overnight stay. 17 JC has read Galsworthy’s The Dark Flower (1913). 124 A Conrad Chronology

December 2 (Tues) JC has read Valery Larbaud’s Journal intime d’A. O. Barnabooth (1913). 3 His 56th birthday. 10 Russell visits for lunch. 17 By this date finishes drafting ‘The Planter of Malata’ (Metropolitan Magazine [NY], June– July 1914 [WT]) and soon begins another short story, ‘Because of the Dollars’. 22 Corresponds with Russell about the latter’s Problems of Philosophy (1912) and ‘A Free Man’s Worship’, an essay in his Philosophical Essays (1910). 29 Writes to Colvin that ‘we have all been victims of a mysterious epidemic which attacked us one after another ... I have just come down after two days’ seclusion. ... A horrible Xmas’ (CL, V, 322).

In the later part of this year, prior to the publication of Chance, JC’s American publisher F. N. Doubleday mounts an aggressive advertisement campaign on his behalf, issuing publicity booklets and forming a ‘Conrad Committee’ headed by the novelist Booth Tarkington, who is mandated to oversee a celebratory Festschrift of essays on JC by other notable writers. JC receives an inscribed copy of Bronisław Malinowski’s The Family among the Australian Aborigines: A Sociological Study (1913).

1914 The outbreak of the First World War in August serves to emphasize the contrasting halves of JC’s 1914 – the first centring upon the pub- lication of Chance and the completion of Victory, the second upon his return to Poland (his first since 1893). The Polish odyssey – a form of recherché du temps perdu for JC and an initiation into their father’s origins for his two ‘English’ sons – will be dramatically interrupted by the outbreak of the War.

January 4 (Sun) Gibbon visits JC, finding him ‘cheerful and full of plans for work’ (to Pinker, unpublished). 12? Graham has stayed overnight at Capel House. 15 Methuen publishes Chance, which receives ‘a tremendous press’ (to Galsworthy: CL, V, 365); the novel brings JC his first popular 1914 125

success and will secure a new measure of financial security for him. The predominant tone of the British reviews is typified by T. P.’s Weekly whose laudatory account ends, ‘‘‘Chance” is a novel of the hour and of the future’ (CR, III, 244). By this date finishes ‘Because of the Dollars’ (Metropolitan Magazine [NY], Sept [WT]), written partly to meet present expenses. 16 Returns from a London visit and suffers a week- long gout attack, which leaves him feeling seedy for the next two months and holds up progress on Victory.

The month’s reading includes Symons’s Knave of Hearts, Graham’s A Hatchment, and My Life in , by Lady Margaret Brooke, Ranee of Sarawak (all 1913); he looks forward to reading Gide’s Les Caves du Vatican (1914).

February 2 (Mon) With Jessie, JC spends two days in London at the Norfolk Hotel. 3 Meets Robert Hobart Davis, Associate Editor of Munsey’s Magazine (NY), at the Savoy Hotel. Davis contracts to purchase the American serial of Victory, with a delivery date of 1 May, later extended. Has received a copy of The Lute of Jade: Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China (1909). As with the earlier ‘Freya’, the New York- based Metropolitan Magazine offers $2,000 for ‘The Planter of Malata’. 4 JC now prepares mentally for the ‘last long pull’ on Victory (to Pinker: CL, V, 345). 10 JC visits Gibbon in Trosley. 17 Encourages Pinker and Russell to read Curle’s Life is a Dream (1914). 21 Having now signed a contract with Munsey’s for serialization of Victory, JC pauses to contemplate its development and final title. 23 Reads Garnett’s Tolstoy: A Study and Ford’s Henry James: A Critical Study (both 1914).

During this or the next month, Retinger arranges for the Polish journalist Marian D˛abrowski to interview JC in London, during which the latter confesses that ‘something pulls ... [him] to Poland’. Published in Tygodnik Ilustrowany [‘The Illustrated Weekly’], 18 April 1914, the interview is reprinted in CUFE, pp. 196– 201. 126 A Conrad Chronology

March 19 (Thurs) Following quickly upon the exceptionally good press given to Chance, James’s drily humorous survey of ‘The Younger Generation’ appears in the Times Literary Supplement (with a second part on 2 April), describing Chance as ‘a porcupine of extravagant yet abnormally relaxed bristles’. According to JC, James’s piece was ‘the only time a criticism affected ... [him] pain- fully’ (to Quinn: CL, V, 595). Still feeling seedy, JC contemplates the 30– 40,000 words of Victory still to write and will soon realize that he cannot meet a May deadline. 26 Preceded by extravagant publicity, Chance is published in America by Doubleday Page, with 10,000 copies sold in the first week. 30 Reads A. C. Bradley’s Shakespearean Tragedy (1904). 31 Thanks Colvin for a copy of G. M. Trevelyan’s Clio, a Muse, and Other Essays (1913), the chapter on the joys of walking charming him.

April 14 (Tues) Thanks J. J. Abraham for a copy of his The Surgeon’s Log: Being Impressions of the Far East ... with Forty- four Illustrations (1911). 25 Looks forward to a visit from Dawson. 29 JC in London to hear Pinker’s report on his recent American trip.

May 5 (Tues) JC has recently been in London to arrange for Borys to be coached for university entrance by Ashley Garrod. 15 The Conrads decline an invitation to attend a dinner on 2 June arranged by Walter Hines Page, who has been mandated to press JC to sign a contract with Doubleday, Page for a limited collected edition of his works. 16 Commissioned by Page, Dawson visits and persuades the Conrads to attend a luncheon on 28 May to meet the American publishers. Another visitor this month is Artur Rubinstein, who has visited his native Poland the previous year. 27 The Conrads travel to London’s Norfolk Hotel. 28 JC attends Page’s luncheon, where he discusses with Doubleday the plan for a collected edition, and meets Mrs Humphry Ward. In the 1914 127

evening, the Conrads go to the Alhambra music- hall in Leicester Square and also see the Colvins before returning home on the 29th. 29 Dawson rents a farmhouse in nearby Ruckinge and sees JC regularly during a fortnight when the latter works intensively on Victory, as he reaches a stage when he can foresee the novel’s ending; he simultaneously revises and corrects the existing clean typescript. 30 After a collision, The Empress of Ireland sinks in the St Lawrence River, with the loss of over 1,000 lives.

June 3 (Wed) JC and Curle call at the Illustrated London News office, where JC reads proofs of an article on the Empress of Ireland (published 6 June). Answering his critics, he soon writes another polemic on the same subject (Daily Express, 10 June; both combined later under the title ‘Protection of Ocean Liners’ [NLL]).

In early June, a summer journey is being planned: pressed by Retinger and with an invitation from Otolia Retinger’s mother to stay at her estate just outside Cracow, the Conrads agree to join the Retingers on a six- week visit to Poland in July, a trip that will coincide with the outbreak of the First World War. Also in June, the first full- length study of JC appears, Curle’s Joseph Conrad: A Study.

7 (or 14) Dawson brings the American novelist Ellen Glasgow for a Sunday visit to Capel House. 25 Frantically trying to finish drafting Victory before the family’s Polish trip, JC sets about composing the final 1,500 words. 27 Completes a draft of Victory, with much revision and rewriting to follow in July, when its final title is also determined. 28 Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife assassinated at Sarajevo. Accompanied by Curle, JC goes with Borys to Sheffield for the latter’s university entrance examinations, beginning on the next day. JC dines with the Vice- Chancellor of the University, before joining the travelling party, which stays at Sheffield’s Grand Hotel for the next five nights.

July 3 (Fri) Lodges with the Wedgwoods at Stonefall Hall, near Harrogate, returning to Sheffield for the second part of Borys’s exams ( 6– 7 July). 128 A Conrad Chronology

8 Arrives back in London, having the previous night seen George Robey, the famed ‘Prime Minister of Mirth’, perform at a Sheffield music hall. On the way home, calls upon Pinker to deposit some corrected clean copy of Victory. Borys will soon learn that he has not succeeded in his entrance examinations. c.20 Before the visit to Poland (which he now anticipates with mixed feelings), has a final meeting with Pinker in London about plans for Collected Editions. 23 Russell arrives for the day, eager to learn JC’s opinion of his first exercise in creative writing, a novella entitled The Perplexities of John Forstice (1972). 25 The JC– Retinger party departs from Harwich for Poland via Hamburg and stays overnight in Berlin on the 27th. 28 Austro– Hungary declares war on , followed by declara- tion of war by Germany on Russia. The travelling party moves from Berlin to Cracow, where, on an after- supper walk with the Retingers and Borys, JC has his first view of Cracow for 40 years. A moonlight stroll takes them along the city’s side roads to Florian´ska Street, and then into vast St Mary’s Square, the centre of the old city. 29 Two days of sightseeing begin in Cracow, with visits to the Jagiellonian Library, JC’s father’s grave at Rakowice Cemetery, Wawel Castle and the Cathedral. 31 Visit to Konstanty Buszczyn´ski’s country estate, Gorka Naródowa. General mobilization of Austria forces the party into a hasty reconsideration of its travel itinerary.

August– September 1 (Aug, Sat) While Retinger leaves for England, the Conrads (with Otolia Retinger) decide to move to unmilitarized territory. JC writes to Galsworthy: ‘if the war takes on a European character I shall be cut off from home for many months perhaps’ (CL, V, 409). 2 (Aug) They travel south to in the Tatra Mountains, where, after a brief stay at the Pension Stamary, they take up resi- dence with Aniela Zagórska at her pension, Villa Konstantynówka. 4 (Aug) Britain declares war on Germany.

Precariously cut off from England, JC will soon be faced with the problem of acquiring funds and permits to make the journey home 1914 129 without risking the family’s safety. Contrary to popular opinion in Zakopane, he does not think the War will be short and envisages it lasting for three years at least. Nevertheless, he is in ‘a particu- larly equable and serene frame of mind’ (CUFE, p. 211) for the first weeks of his two- month stay. Life in Zakopane allows for days of relaxed conversation, much of it ‘connected with the war, and pos- sible horoscopes for Poland’ (CUFE, p. 224), with JC also writing a four- page memorandum on the future of Poland. He enjoys meet- ing the pianist Artur Rubinstein and the novelist Stefan Żeromski; with Zagórska’s guidance, he also enjoys pursuing a course in Polish reading – in particular, Bolesław Prus, Stanisław Wyspianski´ and Wacław Sieroszewski. One author – Eliza Orzeszkowa, who had berated JC and his ‘kind’ in 1899 – is, however, off- limits, with JC refusing to read a single word by her. When he sits for a crayon por- trait by Kazimierz Górski, the latter detects that JC’s devotion to his adopted country and his ‘phenomenal gift for languages’ are such that he ‘is no longer a Pole’ (CUFE, p. 226). The strain of being cut off and without money begins to tell in September when JC, aware that he is virtually destitute, suffers a gout attack.

October 8 (Thurs) With the help of Pinker, Page and American ambas- sador Frederic Penfield (to whom The Rescue will be dedicated), the Conrads receive the necessary release permits. They leave Zakopane for Cracow, departing next day for Vienna, where they lodge at the Matschakerhof Hotel. 10 In Vienna JC suffers from gout for four days and is laid up. 18 They depart Vienna for the Palace Hotel in Milan, arriving the next day. 21 They leave Milan for Genoa, from where on the 24th they embark for home on the SS Vondel.

November 2 (Mon) Arriving at Tilbury in the evening, the Conrads stay overnight at the Norfolk Hotel; next day JC sees Pinker. On his return, JC is laid up with severe gout and arthritis, afflicted also by war- gloom and a sense of his own physical uselessness which persists into 1915. He does not return to the writing- desk until the 15th, when he begins an essay on his recent visit to Poland. 130 A Conrad Chronology

17 (or 24) Stephen McKenna, journalist associated with the Daily Chronicle, visits Capel House to seek out any forthcoming articles by JC.

December 3 (Thurs) JC’s 57th birthday. 5 Lord Kitchener predicts that the War will last for a minimum of three years. 11 ‘Poland Revisited’ appears to be substantially drafted by this date, though revision and rewriting continue into the next two months (Daily News and Leader, 29 and 31 March, 6 and 9 April 1915 [NLL]). 16 After returning from a day in London, JC suffers a physical collapse and is unwell for the remainder of the month; Jessie reports on the 20th that he ‘frets because he cannot write and talks of dictating, [but] this is quite out of the question at present as he cannot even talk sense and keeps wandering’ (to Pinker, unpublished). 25 The Retingers spend Christmas at Capel House, with the Fords invited for tea on the 27th.

1915 January The ‘sort of sick- apathy’ that has plagued JC at the end of the previ- ous year (to the Galsworthys: CL, V, 424) continues into 1915 and accounts for recurring moods of lassitude and despondency which prevent any continuous composition. His afflictions bring both Pinker and Curle to Capel House at mid- month. During this month and the next, he manages to prepare WT (at this stage tentatively called Within the Surf ) for book publication.

19 (Tues) At Pinker’s suggestion, he now plans to revive The Rescue and will tinker at it intermittently for two years (until December 1916). By this date, JC’s debt to Pinker is reduced to £250. 28 Has recently been to Oxford to arrange a private tutor for Borys. Curle having just departed, JC writes: ‘It seems almost criminal levity to talk at this time of books, stories, publication. This war attends my uneasy pillow like a nightmare. I feel oppressed even in my sleep ...’ (to Iris Wedgwood: CL, V, 439). 1915 131

February 3 (Wed) By this date, JC has finished revising proofs for the American book edition of Victory and probably begun writing The Shadow- Line, which will progress haltingly through the year. Victory appears in a single issue of Munsey’s Magazine (NY) this month. 19 The Cadbys visit to photograph JC for the Metropolitan Magazine. 24 WT published by Dent (by Doubleday, Page in America, 15 Jan 1916), dedicated to the Wedgwoods. 26 The Conrads leave for a week in London at the Norfolk Hotel.

March 2? (Tues) JC lunches with Pinker and Linton Hope at the Waldorf Hotel. 3 The Conrads visit the Colvins; JC also meets with Douglas. 6 They return home from London. 18 Ford sends an inscribed copy of The Good Soldier (1915). 20 Anticipating the stop– start creative rhythms of the coming period, JC bracingly declares to Pinker that The Shadow- Line will be finished by the end of the month, while on the same day writ- ing despondently to Rothenstein, he exclaims, ‘I don’t feel like scribbling at all’ (CL, V, 459). 26 Victory: An Island Tale published by Doubleday, Page (by Methuen in Britain, 24 Sept), dedicated to the Gibbons; 12,000 copies are sold by early May. 27 Invited by Ignacy Paderewski, JC declines to join the Polish War Relief Committee, on the grounds that he ‘cannot join a com- mittee where ... Russian names will appear’ (CL, V, 460). 28 Begins checking Methuen’s proofs of Victory. 29 First meditates a film adaptation of ‘Gaspar Ruiz’, a project deferred until 1920.

April Complaints of physical and mental enervation recur from April to the end of August, as composition on The Shadow- Line still lan- guishes. Social life now severely curtailed by the War, JC keeps only spasmodic contact with Marwood, Gibbon, Curle, Symons and the Colvins (whom the Conrads visit at the end of April). Retinger, a 132 A Conrad Chronology more frequent visitor, interests JC in his plans to internationalize the .

4 (Sun) Still in poor health, JC sends a modest batch of 3,000 words of The Shadow- Line to Pinker. 5 Gibbon visits on his return from the Italian Front. c.11 JC supplies Pinker with ‘A Note to the First Edition’ for Methuen’s forthcoming edition of Victory.

May 6 (Thurs) Issues another bold declaration that The Shadow- Line is ‘nearly finished’ (to Pinker: CL, V, 474) – followed by a resonant silence for several weeks. 10? JC arranges with Pinker for Retinger to have a £50 loan, with JC possibly visiting his agent on the 14th. 18 Thanks Galsworthy for a copy of his The Little Man (1915). 22 W. H. Davies, the ‘ tramp– poet’, visits Capel House, with Retinger also present. 31 First Zeppelin attack on London.

June 4 (Fri) From Hawaii, the novelist Jack London writes to JC, telling him that Victory ‘has swept me off my feet’ (Portrait, p. 100). 7 Thanks Violet Hunt for a copy of her The House of Many Mirrors (1915), dedicated to JC. 16 Asks Pinker to order for him Frederick Scott Oliver’s Ordeal by Battle; requests Unwin to send a copy of Baron Eversley’s The Partitions of Poland (both 1915). 22 Clifford has recently visited for an overnight stay; on this day, the Conrads visit Gibbon before he leaves for Europe. 23 Collects Borys from Oxford where he has been preparing for his university entrance examinations. 24 Makes little progress on The Shadow- Line, but professes to ‘have done quite a good bit to the Rescue in the last 3 months’ (to Pinker: CL, V, 486). 28 JC again escorts Borys to Sheffield, where the young man will retake his entrance examinations. After returning to London, they appear to return to Sheffield again on the following Saturday (3 July). Although Borys passes his examination, he decides by mid- July to enlist in the army. 1915 133

July 20 (Tues) Writes to the Royal Society of Literature that he is in favour of setting up a special committee to study the proposal (by Shaw) for a ‘scientific alphabet’ (CL, V, 491). 24 During an unproductive mid- summer, JC complains to James of having written only ten pages since the previous November. 27 Pinker visits Capel House.

At the request of Edith Wharton, JC donates the manuscript of ‘Poland Revisited’ for a New York auction in aid of Belgian refugees. All of the donations are later published in The Book of the Homeless (1916).

August 3 (Tues) Sends a batch of The Shadow- Line to Pinker, with the comment that the ‘next one will be the last – not naming the day. It’s no use doing that’ (CL, V, 496). 12 Agrees to act as co- literary executor (with Violet Hunt) for Ford, who has by now enlisted in the army. 19 Following upon a recent visit to the Colvins, JC thanks Colvin for a copy of his English Association lecture, ‘On Concentration and Suggestion in Poetry’ (1914), which prompts comments from JC on Keats, Browning and Meredith. Has also been read- ing Frederic Harrison’s The German Peril: Forecasts 1864– 1914, Realities 1915, Hopes 191– (1915). 24 First instalment of Victory in the London Star, a popular even- ing newspaper, running until 9 November.

September 2 (Thurs) Sees Pinker in London. 10 Has been reading Galsworthy’s The Freelands (1915). 17 Perhaps with his faltering progress on The Shadow- Line in mind, JC confides: ‘I find it difficult to work in this war atmosphere. Reality, as usual, beats fiction out of sight’ (to Doubleday: CL, V, 509). 20 Drives Borys to Bromley where he joins the Mechanical Transport Corps at Grove Park for training: ‘I wanted to be with him as long as possible on the day he had to put his boyhood definitely behind him’ (to Galsworthy: CL, V, 512). 26 Curle pays a Sunday visit. Following the publication of the English edition of Victory (on the 24th) JC relishes the ‘excel- 134 A Conrad Chronology

lent reviews’ and tells Pinker that ‘the book remains a scored success just as you said it would be’ (CL, V, 515). Declines to address the Polish Association in London on the grounds that he ‘is incapable of speaking in public’ (CL, V, 515). 28 Thanks Ford for sending a volume, probably his Between St. Dennis and St. George: A Sketch in Three Civilisations (1915).

October 6 (Wed) Galsworthy visits Capel House, finding the Conrads in good health. 8 On a weekend stay at the Norfolk Hotel in London, the Conrads celebrate the success of Victory, having decided before- hand that ‘this [London visit] is going to be dissipation all the time from the word go’ (to Pinker: CL, V, 518). In the even- ing, they attend a performance of Charles Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette (1867) at the Shaftesbury Theatre and spend the rest of the weekend socializing with friends. c.16 After another London visit, JC returns home unwell. Gout in his right wrist prevents him from even holding a pen for the next few days. 24 Galsworthy, Graham and Mrs Dummett join a larger Sunday party at Capel House. 26 JC estimates that he has written only ‘20 000 words in 10 months’ (to Rothenstein: CL, V, 523). 28 Finishes reading Graham’s Bernal Diaz del Castillo (1915).

November The effects of painful gout in JC’s wrist linger into the first part of this month.

5 (Fri) Invites Nevile Foster, Managing Director of Land and Water, to Capel House with a view to placing The Shadow- Line as a serial; Foster is also attracted by the possibility of securing The Rescue as a serial. 20 Worried by her husband’s lack of progress on The Shadow- Line, Jessie privately asks Pinker to arrange for a typist to be sent to Capel House for dictation; a further stint of dictation takes place at the month’s end. With this assistance, JC is able to dictate some 11,500 words, achieving more copy in ten days than he has managed over several months. 1916 135

29 In a letter (unpublished), Jessie informs Pinker that ‘the dicta- tion is a success’ and anticipates seeing him at Capel House on the following Wednesday (1 Dec).

December 1 (Wed) Although foreseeing a speedy conclusion to The Shadow- Line, JC still requires another 6,800 words to complete his first draft. 3 JC’s 58th birthday. c.15 Finishes drafting The Shadow- Line (English Review, Sept 1916– March 1917). 18 Thanks Rothenstein for a copy of his Six Portraits of Sir Rabindranath Tagore (1915). 22 Borys arrives home on leave.

1916 January– February Borys’s departure for his unit (and soon for France) leaves JC lonely and cheerless, lacking conviction in his own creative potency – on 12 January, he complains to Dawson that his ‘mentality seems to have gone to pieces’ (CL, V, 553) – and in the efficacy of all art during a time of war. As an escape from this impasse, JC appears to be more than receptive to the year’s many diversions: trips to London and Southsea (to see Borys before he leaves for France) in January; a new tempta- tion to dabble in the theatre when Henry Irving makes an approach to stage Victory; the coming ‘adoption’ of Jane Anderson; and, later in the year, a connection with the war- effort in the form of country- wide naval tours. Meanwhile, the end of February (28th) brings the death of Henry James and JC’s feeling remark the day before, ‘I am slowly getting more and more of a cripple’ (to Quinn: CL, V, 560), an apprehension of his fragility intensified by the fact that, because of his age and infirmity, he can play little active part in the War. At the end of this month, JC receives a copy of Laurence Binyon’s The Anvil (1916), a collection of war- poems, and has read J. G. Huneker’s Ivory, Apes and Peacocks (1915).

March 2 (Thurs) Military Service Act introduces conscription in Britain. 136 A Conrad Chronology

4 Receives a copy of Harriet Capes’s anthology Wisdom and Beauty from Conrad (1915), which has had to be withdrawn due to copyright problems. 5 Grace Willard brings the American sculptor to meet JC, who agrees to sit for him. 7 Curle arrives for a two- day visit. 10 In London at the Norfolk Hotel for two days, sits for Davidson in his Camden House Mews studio, the bust later bought by Gosse and presented to London’s National Portrait Gallery. 14 On return from London, has succumbed to influenza and a bout of depression. 29 With other writers and artists, JC signs a petition sent to the Home Office protesting against the internment of Galsworthy’s German- born brother- in- law, the artist Georg Sauter, in a camp in Wakefield (Yorks). 30 By this date ‘The Warrior’s Soul’ is drafted, though held back for some time (Land and Water, 29 March 1917 [TH]).

Plans for a collected edition of JC’s work take a step forward this month when Doubleday suggests that each volume should include an introductory Author’s Note.

April 4 (Tues) Receives a copy of Dawson’s The True Dimension (1916). 10 Enjoys and admires Wilson Follett’s Joseph Conrad (1915); he is also impressed by Ellen Glasgow’s Life and Gabriella: The Story of Women’s Courage (1916). JC essays a trial- run in writing an Author’s Note, with an introductory preface to An Outcast. 12 Supports Edward Thomas’s application for a Civil List pension. c.13 The bust of JC is unveiled at Davidson’s studio, where Jessie meets the young American journalist Jane Anderson. 19 By this date, Jane (who, in JC’s opinion, is ‘quite yum- yum’) has visited Capel House. During the year she will seek ‘to get herself adopted as ... [the family’s] big daughter’ (to Curle: CL, V, 637). 21 Casement is arrested in Ireland and charged with high treason. Although JC describes him as ‘a truly tragic personality’ (CL, V, 598), he declines to add his signature to an appeal for clemency organized by Sir and signed by many writ- ers, including Galsworthy. (Casement is executed on 3 Aug.) 1916 137

24 The Easter Rebellion in Dublin. Karola Zagórska makes a brief visit.

During this month, JC prepares the text of Almayer’s Folly for Doubleday’s Collected Edition, with preparation of other novels to follow during the next two years.

May 13 (Sat) Marwood dies; JC is too unwell and distressed to attend his funeral on the 17th. 18 Symons visits for lunch. 19 Sits for Rothenstein at his Ebury Street studio. Negotiations with Doubleday continue, though publication of the planned Collected Edition is now suspended until the War ends. Meanwhile, JC interests himself in Gide’s French edition of his works, though its first fruits – Isabelle Rivière’s translation of Victory – do not especially please him. 20 Colvin visits for the weekend. 30 In response to Ford’s request for repayment of debt, JC asks Pinker to send £25.

June In better spirits and improved in health, JC entertains W. H. Davies at Whitsuntide. Later, he drafts ‘A Note on the Polish Problem’ (NLL) at Retinger’s request for circulation in the Foreign Office. Hugh Walpole’s monograph Joseph Conrad is published, while JC makes another half- hearted attempt to take up The Rescue.

21 (Wed) Sees Pinker in London.

July 1 (Sat) The Somme offensive begins. 2 Lord Northcliffe, on a Sunday visit to Capel House, befriends John and Robert Douglas. Sounds of the battlefield invade the Conrads’ Kentish home in quiet Orlestone: ‘As we sat in the garden we could hear the constant faint thudding of the guns in Flanders’ (to Doubleday: CL, V, 614). 12 JC attends a British Academy Lecture by the French writer and politician Maurice Barrès, ‘Le Blason de la France, ou ses traits éternels dans cette guerre et dans les vieilles épopées’, at the Royal 138 A Conrad Chronology

Society. About this time, he may have had a farewell meeting with Ford before the latter’s departure for the Front on the 13th. 19 Provisionally welcomes Irving’s interest in staging Victory, with B. Macdonald Hastings as adaptor. 23 Complains to Garnett of his mental unfitness for serious work, the effect of which is ‘almost paralysing’ (CL, V, 626).

Acquires a copy of Alfred Leslie Salmon’s Songs of Wind and Wave: A Collection of Verse (1916).

August c.2 (Wed) Symons spends most of the day with JC, who has enjoyed reading in proof Symons’s play The Toy Cart (1919). 3 Meets Hastings and Irving for lunch at the Garrick Club, afterwards visiting Pinker to report on developments: JC has pledged to help with the stage version of Victory and will see Hastings’s first scenario of the play later in the month. 10 The Polish Memorandum is received at the Foreign Office, where JC and Retinger are subsequently interviewed by a sen- ior diplomat, George Russell Clerk. c.16 JC reads Hastings’s completed scenario of the stage Victory; on the 22nd, the latter asks Pinker to draw up an agreement between himself and JC.

The ‘great void’ left by Curle’s departure for active service is now partly filled by Retinger, whose political activities ‘go on at white heat’ (to Curle: CL, v, 637, 638), and also by Jane Anderson, the ‘pretty woman’ whom Pinker is invited to meet at Capel House this month (CL, V, 645).

September 5 (Tues) A busy month begins with a visit to the Admiralty to see the Chief Censor, Sir Douglas Brownrigg, in connection with propaganda articles on the work of the Royal Naval Reserve and a proposed programme of visits to naval bases. 6 At work on the stage version of Victory, exchanging detailed letters with Hastings. 11 Goes to Ramsgate on a naval inspection. 13 Staying overnight at the Norfolk Hotel, he sees Pinker, has a long discussion about the Victory play with Hastings and dines with 1916 139

Jane Anderson, before proceeding next day to Lowestoft to begin another tour. 14 In Lowestoft, lodges at the Royal Hotel and next day inspects anti- aircraft artillery. 16 After lunch at the Air Station in Yarmouth, JC returns to Lowestoft and then embarks on a two- day tour in the mine- sweeper Brigadier, returning to Yarmouth on the 18th for a short biplane flight, later described in ‘Never Any More: A First and Last Flying Experience’ (Fledgling, June 1917 [ re- titled ‘Flight’ in NLL]). 19 Now back in London, JC meets Galsworthy and Pinker at Romano’s before joining Jessie and Jane Anderson in Folkestone. 26 Further naval tours take JC to Liverpool and the Midland Adelphi Hotel, from where (on the 29th) he departs for Glasgow, lodging at the Central Station Hotel. While there, he lunches with Graham.

October 1 (Sun) Leaves Glasgow for the Caledonian Hotel in Edinburgh. 2 Visits the Rosyth naval base, returning home on the 4th. 6 Reads Hastings’s The Advertisement: A Play in Four Acts (1915). On impulse, has begun a new short story, ‘The Tale’, soon to be described as his ‘first story of this war’ (to Pinker: CL, V, 674). 30 Finishes drafting ‘The Tale’ (Strand Magazine, Oct 1917 [TH]). Informs Pinker that he is making another visit to Ramsgate.

November 2 (Thurs) Meets Pinker, Lord Northcliffe and Sir Douglas Brownrigg in London, before travelling overnight to Edinburgh to join one of the so- called ‘ Q- ships’, HMS Ready, under Captain J. G. Sutherland. 3 At sea all day on a ship mending deep- sea nets. 4 Again at sea, in the Firth of Forth. 6 From Granton Harbour, JC sails in the Ready, a brigantine dis- guised as a merchant vessel to lure out enemy submarines, on a ten- day mission in the North Sea; in the evenings, he reads Hartley Withers’s War and Lombard Street (1915). 16 Arrives back in Bridlington (where, according to Jessie’s eccentric recollection, he is arrested as an alien). In fact, he leaves directly for London’s Norfolk Hotel, but, not arriving home until the 24th, is perhaps diverted by Jane Anderson. 140 A Conrad Chronology

20 In an interview with Northcliffe, JC discusses North Sea subma- rine strategy, later becoming involved in ‘a hot argument about the press’ (to Pinker: CL, V, 679). c.21 Stays overnight on the Worcester training-ship in Greenhithe, researching letters written by Royal Naval Reserve officers. 25 Now back home, JC is visited by Walter Hines Page’s son Frank. As he will soon hear, Douglas is arrested on a charge of molesting a 16- year- old boy and remanded in custody until 5 December; later, JC may have joined Douglas’s other friends in pressing him to break his bail conditions and flee the country to his Capri home.

December 3 (Sun) JC’s 59th birthday. 4 The present course of the War, JC explains to Dent, accounts for his inability to concentrate on The Rescue, soon to be laid aside again until 1918. He does, however, manage to draft ‘The Unlighted Coast’, though the Admiralty finds it unsuitable as propaganda and decides not to publish it (The Times, 18 Aug 1925 [LE]). 6 JC has been approached by the playwright Harold Brighouse about a possible dramatization of Almayer’s Folly. 9 Reads Symons’s Figures of Several Centuries (1916), dedicated to JC. 10 Thomas stays overnight before going on Front- line service. 13 Asks Pinker whether he would be prepared to take on Jane Anderson as a client; the three foregather for tea at the Norfolk Hotel this month. 24 Writes to Ford on hearing that he has been gassed at the Front and is hospitalized in Rouen. 1917 January Borys, on a ten- day leave, celebrates his 19th birthday at home on the 15th. When he departs, JC begins an unproductive six months in which his output of new work amounts to three prefaces, two for new editions of his works (Lord Jim and YOS) and one for a volume on Turgenev by Garnett. Afflicted by poor health, he begins the year preparing The Shadow- Line for press, dabbling with a short story entitled ‘R. T. Fragments’ that will evolve into The Arrow of Gold and occupying himself with theatrical plans and tentative casting for the 1917 141 stage version of Victory. Intensifying gloom and physical lameness lead him to feel: ‘I am still like a man in a nightmare. And who can be articulate in a nightmare?’ (to Curle: CL, VI, 55).

February 11 (Sun) JC returns corrected book proofs of The Shadow- Line to Dent. 17 Receives a copy of Jacques- Émile Blanche’s Cahiers d’un artist, 3ème série (1917). 26 One Day More is privately printed, the first of 26 limited- edition pamphlets reprinting JC’s shorter articles, nominally of 25 copies each, to be published by Shorter and Wise over the next three years.

March 8 (Thurs) The ‘March’ Revolution begins in Russia, with Tsar Nicholas II abdicating on the 16th. On these recent events, JC comments: ‘Can’t say I am delighted at the Russian revolution. The fate of Russia is of no interest whatever to me’ (to Hugh R. Dent: CL, VI, 46). 15 Ford is invalided home from the battlefront. 18 Hastings reports on his interview with Irving and the actor E. Holman Clark about adaptation of Victory. JC plans a wedding- anniversary gift for Jessie – a self- propelling wheelchair. 19 The Shadow- Line, A Confession published by Dent (by Doubleday, Page in America, 27 April), dedicated to Borys and his comrades- in- arms. Its first English edition of 5,000 copies is sold out by the 27th. 23 Members of the Polish Association’s Commemoration Committee (of which JC is one) organize a meeting in the Æeolian Hall to memorialize the Nobel laureate and the Belgian poet Émile Verhaeren. 24 One of the early notices of The Shadow- Line entitled ‘The Great Conrad’ concludes its lengthy review with the resounding endorsement: ‘For, let there be no mistake about it, “” is literature – and great literature at that’ (CR, III, 499). 26 Early reviews of The Shadow- Line provide only temporary pleasure. Lame and afflicted by the nightmare of war, JC informs Curle the next day, ‘I simply can’t write’, and adds feelingly, ‘We are very lonely here. No one down for months and months’ (CL, VI, 55). 142 A Conrad Chronology

31 Assures Catherine Willard that he will use his influence with Irving to try to secure her a part in the forthcoming stage Victory.

Reads John Freeman’s The Moderns (1916), which includes a chapter on JC’s work.

April 6 (Fri) United States enters the War. 9 Edward Thomas, whom the Conrads have seen only a few days earlier, is killed at the Battle of Arras. Preparing to sign a con- tract with Irving (on 3 May) for the staging of Victory, JC throws himself into plans for its casting. Other theatrical possibilities begin to interest him: he toys with the idea of dramatizing Under Western Eyes and of collaborating with Hastings on an original play set in Italy about a faked old master. 14 Colvin pays a weekend visit, with JC at one point ‘flying out against [Léon] Gambetta’, the French republican statesman (to Colvin: CL, VI, 73). 21 Gide finishes translating ‘Typhoon’, a draft of which JC will receive by 10 May (to be published in March 1918). 30 Asks Pinker to order him a copy of C. G. Jung’s Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).

Late in the month, JC wonders about the causes of his feeling of self- alienation and waning concentration: ‘Is it the war – perhaps? Or the end of Conrad simply?’ (to Garnett: CL, VI, 78).

May c.6 (Sun) Has read The Angel in the House: A Comedy in Three Acts (1915) by Hastings and Eden Phillpotts. 7 Garnett stays overnight, with JC finishing the preface (NLL) to the former’s Turgenev: A Study (1917). 14 The Conrads leave for a few days in London, staying at the Norfolk Hotel; in the evening, they attend a performance of Charles Gounod’s opera Faust (1859) at the Garrick Theatre. 15 They travel to Leigh- on- Sea to visit the Hopes; in the evening, JC attends Irving’s production of Hamlet at London’s Savoy Theatre. 17 Return home from London. 27 Mrs Dummett pays a Sunday visit. 1917 143

June 2 (Sat) Writes to the Paymaster General relinquishing his Civil List pension of £100 annually, first granted in August 1910. 9 Author’s Note for the second English edition of Lord Jim now completed. 19 On a two- day leave in Paris, Borys, having recently met Retinger and Jane Anderson, realizes that he has ‘fallen heavily for Jane’ (MFJC, p. 119). c.29 Second English edition of Lord Jim published by Dent, reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement of 26 July by , who regards the novel as JC’s masterpiece.

July c.3 (Tues) The drift of the early half of the year is halted when JC turns to a story that he has previously dabbled with and which now proves to be his first long work of the year, The Arrow of Gold, also the first of his novels to be largely dictated. 9 The Author’s Note for the second English edition of YOS com- pleted and sent to Pinker; JC now turns to revising proofs of the text.

August 2 (Thurs) Thanks Rothenstein for a copy of his lecture, A Plea for a Wider Use of Artists & Craftsmen (1916). 4 A prize- winning essay in a competition to describe ‘The Tendency of English Fiction in 1917’ sponsored by the Saturday supplement of the Westminster Gazette nominates The Shadow- Line: ‘Always he [JC] gives the impression of one who tells a tale while subjected to drawn- out mental or physical pain’ (p. 7). 8 Receives a copy of ’s Lustra, with Earlier Poems (1917). 29 Thanks E. L. Grant Watson for a copy of his The Mainland (1917).

September 3 (Mon) Reads Galsworthy’s Beyond (1917). 10 Second English edition of YOS published by Dent, reviewed by Virginia Woolf in the Times Literary Supplement of 20 September. c.12 Interviewed by an American United Press man. 13 Borys arrives home on a ten- day leave. 17 Colvin pays a weekend visit. 144 A Conrad Chronology

October 1 (Mon) JC has received a copy of Roman Dmowski’s Problems of Central and Eastern Europe (1917). Compliments Edith Wharton on her ‘fine, distinct and subtle’ novel, Summer (1917) (CL, VI, 129). 7 Completes the Author’s Note for the second English edition of Nostromo; finishes correcting proofs of the novel’s text on the 9th. 13 Hastings visits Capel House for a lengthy discussion about the stage Victory. 21 Reads Galsworthy’s Five Tales (1918) in proof form; tells him that he is ‘half paralysed mentally’ (CL, VI, 137). 25 Lunches with Brownrigg at the Admiralty during a two- day stay in London, lodging overnight with Pinker at Burys Court. 27 Thanks Garnett for a copy of his Turgenev: A Study (1917). 31 Jessie’s worsening condition will soon necessitate a lengthy stay in London for surgery.

November 7 (Wed) Bolshevik Revolution takes place in Petrograd, with troops taking Moscow on the 16th. 11 Receives a copy of H. L. Mencken’s A Book of Prefaces (1917), which includes a chapter on JC. 12 Begins reading Colvin’s John Keats: His Life and Poetry (1917). 14 In London, lunches with Galsworthy at Romano’s. 16 The Conrads begin a three- month stay in London, lodging first at the Norfolk Hotel. On the 26th, they move to 4C Hyde Park Mansions to be near Jessie’s nursing home in York Place, Marylebone. 26 Jessie leaves for the nursing home where, over the coming six weeks, amputation of a leg is averted in favour of physi- otherapy, with a heavy metal splint attached to her limb. 27 JC dines with Galsworthy, Barrie and Henry Massingham at Romano’s. 28 Arranges to hire Miss Hallowes on a part- time basis for dic- tation and typing in connection with The Arrow. Goes to Brixton’s Kingsway Theatre to see Catherine Willard play Regina in Ibsen’s Ghosts (1881). December 3 (Mon) JC’s 60th birthday. Now settled in London, he continues to dictate The Arrow but also enjoys the social round with old 1918 145

friends – Graham and Mrs Dummett, Garnett, the Colvins, Grace Willard and others. 6 Celebrates his birthday at the RAC with the Galsworthys, Garnett, Barrie, Lucas, Massingham and Gilbert Murray. 9 Lunches with W. L. George, having probably read his first novel, A Bed of Roses (1911). 30 Writes to Colvin that he has borrowed from the former’s library ‘one [Henry] Maine, two Carlyles (of [J. A.] Froude) and two Goncourts’ (CL, VI, 158). During this London visit, he also borrows from Colvin’s library Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1550) and Benjamin Haydon’s Autobiography (1853), all volumes likely to be ancil- lary reading for The Arrow. Thanks Unwin for sending four volumes of verse by the Scots– Canadian poet Robert Service.

1918 January Second English edition of Nostromo appears this month.

1 (Tues) Despite lameness, JC works on The Arrow, with some 26,000 words drafted. He is encouraged by Garnett, who joins him at Hyde Park Mansions for the New Year. 2 Visits Pinker’s office for a business meeting. c.14 Has been reading George Sand’s Histoire de ma vie ( 1854– 5). 23 Colvin introduces a young admirer, Hugh Walpole, at London’s Carlton Hotel. The artist Percy Anderson, also present, will start to paint JC’s portrait on 31 January (held in the National Portrait Gallery, London). JC asks Pinker to secure him a copy of Walpole’s Dark Forest (1916). The latter, initially awed by JC as an ‘intellectual Corsair’, is soon invited to dine at Hyde Park Mansions and becomes a regular part of the Conrads’ circle (Stape 2009, 166). 26 Surgeons apply a weighty splint to Jessie’s leg, to be worn for the next four months. 27 JC spends the day with the Sandersons in Elstree. 31 Galsworthy visits and finds the Sandersons with JC.

February 1 (Fri) At the invitation of Sir Robert Jones, visits the Orthopædic Hospital in Shepherd’s Bush. Garnett and Walpole visit in the 146 A Conrad Chronology

evening. In early February, the writer Cecil Roberts meets JC at a soirée given by Grace Willard in Bedford Square. 6 Reads Ezra Pound’s Pavannes and Divisions (1918), though describes himself as ‘too old and too wooden- headed to appre- ciate ... [Pound] as perhaps he deserves’; he prefers a work by Michael Monahan, possibly New Adventures (1917). Surveying the tragic dimensions of the present War and its assault upon all forms if idealism, JC concludes that ‘there is nothing in the world to lay hold on to but the work that has to be done on each succeeding day’ (to Quinn: CL, VI, 180, 181). 8 Walpole and Garnett again dine with JC. 12 Receives a copy of Max Adeler’s Out of the Hurly- Burly; or Life in an Odd Corner (1882), which becomes one of his more or less permanent bedside books. 15 Galsworthy visits. 22 Roberts visits JC’s London flat, finding Garnett already there. 24 From London, the Conrads go to see John at his new school at Ripley Court. 25 Has read Galsworthy’s pamphlet The Land: A Plea (1918). 26 The Conrads return to Capel House.

March 4 (Mon) Completes ‘Tradition’ (Daily Mail, 8 March [NLL]), for which he receives a princely 250 guineas from the Mail’s owner Lord Northcliffe. 7 In tolerable health, JC prepares for a final effort on The Arrow. Regular dictation from January onwards accounts for its remark- ably speedy drafting; at present, he is ‘“writing up” the dictated stuff’ until the 23rd, when Miss Hallowes resumes her duties (to Pinker: CL, VI, 193). 14 Becomes a member of the Athenæum Club, nominated by Colvin, with his £40 fee paid by Northcliffe. 20 Receives a copy of Walpole’s The Green Mirror (1917). 24 Contact with Borys is now restored after ten days of worrying silence during an increased German offensive.

April 16 (Tues) JC now enters ‘the period of tension’ with The Arrow as he approaches its ending (to Pinker: CL, VI, 200). 1918 147

25 Attends a preview of Rothenstein’s war-pictures at the Goupil Gallery in Regent Street, meeting Gosse and lunching with the Rothensteins and the Minister of Education, H. A. L. Fisher.

May 1 (Wed) Thanks Gosse for an inscribed copy of his Father and Son (1907), which he has already twice read. 6 The stage Victory has a trial- performance in Syracuse, NY, directed by , who will go on to direct the 1940 Paramount film version of the novel. 14 The Conrads see William Congreve’s The Way of the World (1700) performed by the English Stage Society (including Catherine Willard) at King’s Hall in London’s Covent Garden. 16 Reads some of Garnett’s war satires in proof, later to be published as Papa’s War and Other Satires (1919). 17 Now at work on the last chapter of The Arrow. 19 Dr Kenneth Campbell, a family friend, is a Sunday visitor to Capel House. 20 Jean- Aubry arrives for an overnight stay, followed by the Galsworthys (26th), who find JC in good health. 29 He accompanies Jessie for a session with her doctors; her future treatment will entail another lengthy stay in London next month. 31 Gosse sends an inscribed copy of his Three French Moralists and the Gallantry of France (1918).

June 1 (Sat) Walpole arrives for a weekend visit, finding JC in fine form and complimentary about his recent novel The Green Mirror (1918). 4 Finishes The Arrow, writing its First and Second Notes until the 14th. 7 Has enjoyed Walpole’s monograph Joseph Conrad (1916), though regrets that it promulgates the view that JC, as an apprentice writer, hesitated between English and French languages. 11 Defends Nostromo at length against reservations that Gosse seems to have expressed. 19 The Conrads leave for London, where Jessie requires further treatment. 25 Jessie enters a Marylebone nursing home for her operation by Sir Robert Jones and will remain there for six weeks. Before she departs, Gide visits with some translated material for JC to 148 A Conrad Chronology

approve. Borys arrives in London on a fortnight’s leave and joins the family, again at 4C Hyde Park Mansions.

During this month JC receives an inscribed copy of W. L. George’s A Novelist on Novels (1918). July 3 (Wed) Borys catches severe influenza, treated by Dr Mackintosh; he is forced to postpone his return to France. 5 JC reads the manuscript of the unfinished Rescue in preparation for a decisive return to it in the autumn. Garnett and Jean- Aubry visit in the evening. The Belgian writer André Ruyters has also been a recent visitor. 6 With John, delivers a medical certificate for Borys to the War Office. 18 Borys is now fit enough to return to France, though his father feels thoroughly seedy. 19 In a letter to ‘Mr Batty’ apparently designed for publication in a seamen’s journal, JC eulogizes the heroic work of the Royal Naval Reserve (CL, VI, 248– 9). 20 Garnett visits, followed by Jean- Aubry the next day.

August 10 (Sat) ‘First News’ appears in Reveille (NLL), edited by Galsworthy. 13 The Conrads return home from London, though Jessie has shown little improvement. 22 ‘Well Done!’, written in London during late July and early August to pay for medical expenses, runs in three instalments in the Daily Chronicle until the 24th (NLL). 24 New Republic (NY) prints ‘Mr Conrad is not a Jew’, a letter from JC in response to a waspish jibe by Frank Harris in the February issue of Pearson’s Magazine (NY). Walpole spends the weekend at Capel House. September 2 (Mon) Miss Hallowes returns for secretarial duties, with the com- ing week ‘given up to visitors, American and others’ (to Pinker: CL, VI, 262). 7 Still resting after finishing The Arrow, JC enjoys being involved with the stage Victory and its casting. 11 Gordon Gardiner visits, followed by Hugh Dent on the 16th. 17 About this time, the Conrads learn that they will soon have to move from Capel House, which is now needed by the owner. 1918 149

21 Walpole makes a weekend visit, JC admiring Walpole’s Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill (1911). 25 Soon to escort Jessie to London for more medical treatment, JC braces himself for a return to The Rescue. 27 Reads Gardiner’s first novel, The Reconnaissance (1914). 28 Jean- Aubry pays a visit. 30 Asks Pinker to acquire for him a copy of E. V. Lucas’s ‘latest book’, probably ’Twixt Eagle & Dove (1918).

October 1 (Tues) On Dr Mackintosh’s advice, JC takes Jessie to London for treatment on her leg. For the next fortnight, he lodges at the Norfolk Hotel while she is confined to hospital. 2 By this date, JC breaks his agreement with Quinn by selling manuscripts to the bibliophile T. J. Wise, to whom he writes on 10 December, ‘I am afraid Quinn will want to take my scalp when he hears of our transactions’ (CL, VI, 324). 9 In better health, JC plans a ‘frontal attack’ on The Rescue, anticipating a January completion date and looking forward to his next project, Suspense (to Curle: CL, VI, 282). 11 By this date, The Rescue is contracted for serialization in Land and Water. c.13 The Conrads return home. 15 Back in London, JC visits Land and Water office to see the edi- tor, Nevile Foster: they discuss dates for the serial, the arrange- ments for delivery of copy and the illustrators. 17 Orders copies of Benjamin Constant’s Adolphe (1816), Eugène Fromentin’s Domenique (1863) and Alphonse de Lamartine’s Raphaël: Pages de la vingtieme année (1849). JC invites Pinker to join him in a house- viewing expedition on the 18th. 21 The Conrads hear that Borys, suffering from shell- shock, has been hospitalized in Rouen. 27 André Ruyters, the Belgian writer, pays a Sunday visit.

November Much of the month is taken up with searching for a new house and several visits to Hartley Manor, Longfield (Kent), though this property is finally rejected.

4 (Mon) Pinker joins the Conrads in house- viewing, staying overnight. 150 A Conrad Chronology

11 Armistice Day. JC’s relief is mixed with apprehensive dread: ‘Great and very blind forces are set free catastrophically all over the world’ (to Walpole: CL, VI, 302). Jean- Aubry arrives for an overnight stay. 12 Thanks Edmund Candler for sending a copy of his Siri Ram, Revolutionist: A Transcript from Life, 1907– 10 (1914). 14 In London, to discuss with Count Władysław Sobanski´ a pro- jected Polish article that probably evolves into ‘The Crime of Partition’, at this stage planned for publication in Land and Water (see entry for 27 Dec). 21 Completes Part IV of The Rescue. 25 Looks forward to a visit at the end of the month by Siegfried Sassoon, whose war-poetry he reads (the visit is eventually can- celled because of Conrad family illnesses). 26 Borys arrives home on a 15- day leave.

December Serialization of The Arrow begins this month in Lloyd’s Magazine (until Feb 1920), its fiction section opening with a lavish full- page colour portrait of the story’s heroine, Doña Rita.

3 (Tues) JC’s 61st birthday. 6 JC and Pinker debate whether The Rescue should precede The Arrow as the next published volume; JC now looks forward to starting Suspense. 12 His outrage at the poor quality of Dudley Hardy’s sample illus- trations for the forthcoming Rescue serial in Land and Water prompts the editor to replace Hardy with JC’s favoured illustra- tor, Maurice Greiffenhagen. 14 House- hunting still preoccupies JC, although he has also begun ‘a Polish Article’ (to Pinker: CL, VI, 331). 18 Meets Pinker in London for a business meeting. 21 Jean- Aubry arrives for a weekend visit. 27 Finishes ‘The Crime of Partition’ (Fortnightly Review, 1 May 1919 [NLL]), with revision continuing through January. 1919 January 2 (Thurs) After a meeting with Doubleday in London to discuss the forthcoming Collected Edition, JC is prevented from further work on The Rescue by a month’s gout. 1919 151

7 Manages to visit the family’s long- serving maid, Nellie Lyons, who is terminally ill in hospital and dies on the 20th. 15 Incapacitated and in bed, he is unable to join Borys’s 21st- birthday celebrations. 18 Paris Peace Conference begins, running until 21 January 1920. 25 Walpole arrives for the weekend, travelling to Capel House with Borys; JC has just read Walpole’s The Secret City (1919). Follows Clifford’s African activities in the annual Gold Coast Blue Book and admires E. M. Delafield’s The War- Workers (both 1918). 30 Serialization of The Rescue begins in Land and Water, continuing until 31 July.

February 7 (Fri) The Conrads go to London (until the 13th) for further examinations on Jessie’s leg, staying at Durrants Hotel in Marylebone. 10 JC sees much of Gibbon during this stay, encouraging him away from alcohol and back to writing; in the evening he dines with Garnett at the hotel. 12 Pays a morning visit to the Surrey Scientific Company (Mortlake), where Borys has been offered a job; in the afternoon, meets Land and Water editor and illustrators; dines with Graham in the evening. 14 Stephen Reynolds dies. 15 Now back at Capel House, JC resumes work on The Rescue (Part V), hoping that it may help him to win the Nobel Prize, which he regards as ‘less in the nature of an honour than of mere reward’ (to Pinker: CL VI, 362). 19 Reads through his past correspondence to Garnett, which the latter plans to publish (and eventually does so in 1928). 25 Lunches with Pinker in London, handing over Part V of The Rescue; also has business meetings with Doubleday and C. K Shorter. 26 Marie Löhr, actress and co- manager of London’s Globe Theatre, expresses an interest in producing Victory.

March 3 (Mon) Dines with Marie Löhr, who soon takes over the play’s production and will herself take the part of Lena; JC spends the afternoon at the theatre, meeting the cast and listening to Hastings’s reading of Act I. 152 A Conrad Chronology

8 Walpole visits for the weekend, finding ‘Conrad a darling’ (Stape 2009, 170). 10 JC has now started Part VI of The Rescue. 18 After a stay in Hill Hospital, Borys is invalided out of the army. 20 Thanks H. M. Tomlinson for a copy of his Old Junk (1918). 25 The Conrads take up temporary residence in Spring Grove, Wye, near Ashford (Kent). 26 Premiere of Victory at London’s Globe Theatre, attended by Borys. JC possibly attends one or two of its 89 performances. Running until 6 June, one of its performances attracts a visit by the King and Queen.

April 7 (Mon) Sends off the Author’s Note to An Outcast. 12 The Arrow of Gold published by Doubleday, Page (by Unwin in Britain, 6 Aug), the first JC volume to have a first edition of more than 10,000 copies. 16 Finishes ‘Confidence’, commissioned for the Golden Peace number of the Daily Mail, 30 June (NLL), celebrating the sign- ing of the Treaty of Versailles. Immediately after, JC suffers a three- week period of severe gout; Jessie is also painfully crippled. 23 Finishes drafting the Author’s Note to TU. 28 Pinker’s younger son Ralph arrives at Spring Grove, where he will lodge for the next few months while undertaking training in agriculture at nearby Bourne Park. 30 Still in bed with gout, JC is cheered up by Gibbon, who has been at Spring Grove since the 26th.

May 3 (Sat) JC apologizes to Quinn for the misunderstanding that has led to Curle being preferred to the American collector as dedica- tee of The Arrow; JC promises that Suspense will be reserved for Quinn. 9 Recently cheered by a long talk with Pinker, he begins his final drive on The Rescue. 17 Jean- Aubry visits for lunch. 1919 153

c.24 Encouraged by Pinker, JC plays with the idea of adapting The Secret Agent for the stage; the idea materializes in October. 25 Finishes drafting The Rescue 23 years after its first beginning, revising the last pages until the 28th. 27 Receives a copy of Robert Lynd’s Old and New Masters (1919), which includes a chapter on JC, and an inscribed copy of Paul Wenz’s Le Pays de leurs pères (1919).

June 2 (Mon) Receives an inscribed copy of Albert Kelsey’s Yucatecan Scenes and Sounds (1919). 7 Curle stays for the weekend when JC is again laid up with gout. Recent visitors include the Irish actor– manager and play- wright, James Fagan and his wife. 14 Enjoys Candler’s collection of stories, The General Plan (1911). 16 Borys drives his father to the American Embassy in London for an appointment arranged by the Alice Kauser Agency, repre- senting Famous Players Laski (the forerunner of the Paramount Company): there JC signs an agreement with Robert L. Giffen (acting for the Kauser agency) for the sale of world film- rights to Romance, Lord Jim, Chance and Victory for $22,500. 21 JC thanks Candler for sending a copy of his The Sepoy (1919). Walpole arrives for the weekend, with JC speaking of his plans for a Napoleonic novel (Suspense). 23 JC and Walpole motor to London. JC stays for two days, lodg- ing overnight with Gibbon. Sees Colvin, who presents him with his edition of Keats’s Letters (1891). 28 Curle arrives for the weekend, with Candler also a guest.

July 9 (Wed) The Galsworthys at Spring Grove for lunch. 11 The Conrads visit the Hopes in Colchester for the weekend, the first of several social occasions in July. They arrive home on the 13th to welcome Harriet Capes as a guest, followed by Curle and the Wedgwoods later in the month. 15 JC in London to see Pinker on business. 18 Curle arrives for the weekend; he and JC make a visit to Curle’s sister Muriel on the 21st. 154 A Conrad Chronology

August 2 (Sat) Gordon Gardiner arrives for the weekend, the first of many visitors this month, including Garnett (who stays for three days), Auguste Gilbert de Voisins and the Pinkers. 6 JC reads Galsworthy’s Another Sheaf (1919). 7 Early notices of The Arrow, published in Britain on 6 August, are ‘very poor, puzzle- headed, hesitating, pronouncements; yet not inimical’ (to Colvin: CL, VI, 459). 9 Walpole visits and finds JC in good form, although annoyed by recent mixed reviews. JC tells him that his favourite books to reread are W. H. Hudson’s Idle Days in Patagonia (1893) and ’s The Malay Archipelago (1869), but he ‘scoffs’ deri- sively at Herman Melville’s Typee (1846) (Stape 2009, 172). 20 JC is much impressed by Gide’s Journal sans dates (1910) and now also reads W. L. George’s Blind Alley, dedicated to JC (1919). 28 Accompanies Jessie, again crippled, to London for examinations on her leg; she will need to have still more tests. 30 Jean- Aubry arrives for a weekend visit.

September 2 (Tues) Dr Tebb has recently visited for two days, interesting JC in his collection of Odilon Redon lithographs. 6 Walpole and Sandeman stay for the weekend, with Sir John Everett Millais visiting on Sunday afternoon. 12 Theatrical producer Frank Vernon and Pinker visit to discuss The Secret Agent drama. 19 Compliments Sandeman on his travel journal ‘Our Ride through the Grazalema- Ronda Sierra: A Nine Day’s Diary’ (unpublished). 21 JC’s name appears with 200 others on an ‘Address from Men and Women of Letters’ to Gosse on his 70th birthday. 23 In London, sees Eric Pinker and J. M. Dent.

During the summer, JC has written three more Author’s Notes (to A Personal Record, TOS and Mirror) and, with Garnett’s help, revises The Rescue for book publication.

October 3 (Fri) Begins the move from Spring Grove to Oswalds, Bishopsbourne, near , the Conrads’ final home, with Grace Willard supervising its furnishing. 1919 155

10 JC leaves for a weekend with the Pinkers at Burys Court. After his relaxed summer, he begins work on a four- act dramatization of The Secret Agent, with Act I nearly finished by the 15th. 15 ‘Stephen Crane: A Note without Dates’ finished and sent to Pinker (London Mercury, Dec [NLL]). 24 In London, sees Pinker and Graham and visits J. M. Dent’s office.

November 4 (Tues) JC’s objection that the French translation of The Arrow has been promised to a woman rather than Jean- Aubry leads to an awkward exchange with Gide. 9 Vernon visits to work on The Secret Agent stage- play, with Act II finished next day. 12 Curle helps JC to compile items for a planned volume of his col- lected prose (NLL). 15 The Galsworthys call to see the Conrads’ new home at Oswalds. 20 Has received a copy of Gerald Cumberland’s Tales of a Cruel Country (1919). 22 Fresh from reading Graham’s Brought Forward (1916), JC now finishes Act III of the play, expecting a visit from Jean- Aubry the next day. 27 The Conrads arrive at London’s Norfolk Hotel for a three- day stay (during which JC sees Heinemann and confers with theat- rical producers about his new play), leaving on the 30th for a month’s stay in Liverpool, where Jessie’s knee will be operated on at Sir Robert Jones’s clinic.

December 2 (Tues) On the day before JC’s 62nd birthday, Jessie undergoes her operation. She will convalesce at the Sefton Nursing Home for most of the month.

While in Liverpool, he attends a lecture by Jean- Aubry at the Royal Institution on ‘Verlaine et les musiciens’ (on the 12th). On the 18th, JC gives his first formal speech – on the traditions of the Merchant Marine – to the University Club, with David Bone present to give support. Otherwise this month is unproductive, the later part spoilt by ill- health. The Conrads leave Liverpool just before Christmas, staying overnight in London and arrive home on the 23rd. 156 A Conrad Chronology

1920 January– February Illness dominates the early part of the year when JC, on his return from Liverpool, is laid low for two months by severe bronchitis, followed by gout and depression. In bed for much of the time, he slowly and painfully corrects advance slips for the book edition of The Rescue, finishing on 24 May. (27 Jan) Hugh Dent and his wife lunch at Oswalds, with the former securing JC’s permission to publish a school- edition that brings together ‘Youth’ and ‘Gaspar Ruiz’ (published in 1920). Jessie develops shingles and, her recent operation having been unsuccessful, awaits further surgery. In the middle of these difficul- ties, Karola Zagórska arrives (27 Feb) for a six- month stay. During the coming year, JC is much preoccupied with plans for collections of his work, both Collected Editions and NLL. His reading during these two months includes David Bone’s Merchantmen- at- Arms: The British Merchant Service in the War and Constance Garnett’s translation of ’s The Party and Other Stories (both 1919).

March 4 (Thurs) Completes the Author’s Note to The Secret Agent, followed by an afternoon trip to Hythe and Folkestone. 12 JC receives inscribed copies of Curle’s Aspects of (1908) and The Echo of Voices (1917). 15 The first draft of the The Secret Agent play is finished, with revi- sion continuing over the next few days; it is soon to be sent to theatrical producers Frank Vernon and J. E. Vedrenne. 17 JC prepares to read Les Mémoires de Saint- Simon (1675– 1755), by Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint- Simon, a gift from Jean- Aubry. The latter has also presented him with a copy of Stefan Żeromski’s Syzfowe prace [‘The Labours of Sisyphus’] (1910). 25 Receives a copy of Curle’s Wanderings (1920), already seen in manuscript. 26 Curle visits while Jessie is laid up awaiting an operation. 31 Jessie enters St George’s Nursing Home in Canterbury, with her leg operation by Sir Robert Jones undertaken on the same day.

April 5 (Mon) Has read W. L. George’s Caliban (1920). 1920 157

7 Heinemann visits for lunch to discuss the design of the forth- coming Collected Edition; JC is still afflicted by gout. 10 Grants Aniela Zagórska the Polish translation rights to his works. 15 Has read Graham’s A Brazilian Mystic, Being the Life and Miracles of Antonio Conselheiro (1920). 19 Finishes reading the manuscript of Galsworthy’s In Chancery (1920), eventually to be dedicated to him. 20 Jessie returns from the nursing home, carried on a stretcher. JC prepares to read Galsworthy’s Tatterdemalion (1920). 26 Hugh Dent visits, seeking to persuade JC to enter into an agree- ment for his future work. Sends a cablegram to the Committee for the Polish Government Loan, Washington DC, in support of a Polish loan (CDOUP). 30 Visits the Colvins in London.

During this month, finishes the Author’s Note to SS and TLS.

May 1 (Sat) Still in constant pain from periostitis, Jessie undergoes another operation, this time at home. 4 Pinker visits Oswalds, where Harriet Capes is also a guest. 6 JC in London to see Pinker; orders three books – Hartley Withers’s The Case for Capitalism, A. F. Pollard’s A Short History of the Great War and F. W. Edridge- Green’s Physiology of Vision, with Special Reference to Colour Blindness (all 1920). 7 The Polish– Russian Soviet War intensifies, with the offensive on the Ukraine led by General Józef Piłsudski. 8 Curle arrives for a weekend visit. 18 JC receives an admission pass for the British Museum reading- room. 20 Jean- Aubry visits, followed by Graham and Mrs Dummett on the 30th. 21 The Rescue published by Doubleday, Page (by Dent in Britain, 24 June), dedicated to Frederic Penfield; Pinker joins JC at Oswalds. 25 Purchases the three- volume Mémoires de Madame de Rémusat: 1802– 1808, an addition to his programme of reading for Suspense.

During this month, JC composes or dictates Author’s Notes to Under Western Eyes, Chance, Victory, The Shadow- Line and WT. 158 A Conrad Chronology

June 5 (Sat) Walpole visits for the weekend, hearing JC’s plans for Suspense and meeting Curle. 7 JC travels with both men to London, lunches with them at Frascati’s Restaurant in Oxford Street and then does research on Napoleonic history at the British Museum. On arriving home he has a severe gout attack, which leaves him in ‘the depth of dumps’ for several days (to Walpole: CL, VII, 111). 8 Receives a copy of Joseph Hergesheimer’s Wild Oranges (1919). 14 JC has heard that Bennett is to act as reader for the stage The Secret Agent; invites Curle for a weekend visit on the 19th. 23 In London, visits J. M. Dent. 26 Marie Meloney, American editor and journalist, visits Oswalds. 30 Thanks Claude Bragdon for a copy of his Four- Dimensional Vistas (1916). July 1 (Thurs) The Rescue attracts a review by Virginia Woolf and, next day, by Katherine Mansfield (CR, IV, 39– 43, 43– 6). 2 JC delivers John to his school in Ripley Court, returning to London to see Pinker; with Borys, the two men later drive back to Oswalds. 3 The American pianist and composer John Powell gives a week- end concert at Oswalds, playing his own composition Rhapsodie Nègre (based on ‘Heart of Darkness’) and Chopin; Curle is also present before leaving for Burma. 17 On a weekend stay, Walpole sees part of the second chapter of Suspense and reports that JC is delighted to have been asked to advise on the fitting out of a Liverpool sailing- ship (see entry for 24 July). Graham and T. E. Lawrence visit on Sunday. 19 Northcliffe pays a visit. 21 In London to see Pinker, returns home to prepare for Jessie’s lat- est operation by Sir Robert Jones on the 23rd. 24 In response to a request from Lawrence Holt, director of a Liverpool shipping firm, JC has finished ‘Memorandum on the Scheme for Fitting out a Sailing- Ship’ (LE). 25 (or 26) Charles Meltzer, American dramatist and drama critic, who is interested in reading the stage adaptation of The Secret Agent, visits Oswalds. 1920 159

August The high summer social round begins, with visits from Pinker, Thomas J. Wise, Dent, Symons, the Hopes and Ralph Pinker, who stays during Canterbury Cricket Week. A visit by the Conrads to see Kipling at Bateman’s, Burwash, probably takes place about this time. Suspense recedes into the background, only three chapters having been written by the 18th.

3 (Tues) Holt and his designer visit Oswalds to discuss plans for his training- ship. 8 The Conrads visit Lady Northcote at her Eastwell Park home, near Ashford. Guests include the Duchess of Albany and Lady Gwendolen Cecil. 19 Has received a copy of Recreation (1920), by Edward Grey (Viscount Falloden). 23 Hope leaves after a weekend stay at Oswalds. 27 Meets Sandeman for lunch at Verreys Restaurant in Regent Street. In preparation for work on a film scenario, JC and Pinker pay a visit to the ‘moving pictures’ at the London Pavilion in Piccadilly Circus to see Hugo’s Les Misérables, with JC staying overnight at Burys Court.

September 1 (Wed) Having arrived at the Great Eastern Hotel in Deal the previous day, the Conrads begin a three- week holiday, which provides JC with a mixture of pleasure – in the form of many boat- trips with John – and business. For the first fortnight he revises and arranges the contents of NLL, for which contract negotiations with Dent are already in progress. 11 Pinker arrives. The two men begin a film scenario of ‘Gaspar Ruiz’, to be called Gaspar the Strong Man. 30 Sir John Everett Millais, a close friend of the Conrads and near- neighbour, dies.

October 4 (Mon) Garnett arrives at Oswalds for a two- day visit. 5 Heinemann dies. 6 Polish– Russian peace treaty signed in Riga. 9 Finishes the Author’s Note to NLL, also drafting one for The Arrow later in the month. Doubleday and his son Nelson come 160 A Conrad Chronology

for lunch. Walpole, whose The Captives (1920) JC has just read, arrives for the weekend. 29 By this date JC finishes the screenplay of Gaspar the Strong Man. He and Pinker will later meet representatives of the Laski Film Company, though nothing comes of the project (see entry for 22 April 1921).

November JC’s health and mood deteriorate during late autumn, leaving him feel- ing ‘gouty, seedy, crusty, moody ... cynical and lame’ (to Harriet Capes: CL, VII, 204). Unfit for work on Suspense, he has been helping Jean- Aubry to translate the latter’s ‘Joseph Conrad’s Confessions’ into English.

4 (Thurs) ’s 1919 film of Victory (the first film to be based on a JC novel) runs at St George’s Theatre in Canterbury until Saturday; JC has invited Pinker to come and see it. c.11 Jean- Aubry visits to discuss his article on JC. 17 Receives a copy of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence (1920). 18 Interviewed by Ernest Rhys for an article in The Bookman (NY); on arrival, Rhys finds him reading a Wharton novel (see pre- ceding entry). 22 Jessie goes to London for a week for further surgery, where JC joins her on the 25th and lunches with Dr Mackintosh at Brown’s Hotel to discuss plans for Borys’s new job with the Surrey Scientific Company in Mortlake. The Conrads then pro- ceed to Burys Court for a weekend with the Pinkers, returning home on the 29th. 30 Gide has sent a copy of his La Symphonie pastorale (1919).

During this or the next month, JC sits for a Max Beerbohm entitled ‘Somewhere in the Pacific’, published in A Survey (1921).

December 2 (Thurs) Accompanied by Pinker, JC attends a matinée at the Little Theatre to see two plays featuring in the London Grand Guignol Season, H. F. Maltyby’s What Did her Husband Say? and Pierre Mille and Cilia de Vylars’s The Medium. JC plans to submit a short two- act play to the Little Theatre. (See entry for 10 December.) 3 JC’s 63rd birthday. 1921 161

4 JC accompanies Dr Mackintosh to London before bringing him back to Oswalds to meet Pinker on a weekend visit. 10 Finishes a draft of Laughing Anne (a two- act dramatization of ‘Because of the Dollars’), which he revises and expands over the following week. He intends submitting it to Jose G. Levy, man- ager of London’s Little Theatre, for its Grand Guignol season. 17 A busy JC settles his affairs in London prior to a forthcoming visit to , the first batch of NLL proofs having arrived the day before. Thanks Rothenstein for a copy of his Twenty- Four Portraits, with Critical Appreciations by Various Hands (1920). 20 S. A. Everitt visits, followed soon after by a group of Polish guests, including the composer Karol Szymanowski, Konstanty Skirmunt (the Polish chargé d’affaires in London) and the musi- cian, Jan Effenberger- Sliwi ´ nski.´ 23 Has read Graham’s Cartagena and the Banks of the Sinú (1920). 28 Conrad purchases three volumes: Degas: Quatre vingt dix huit reproductions signées par Degas (1914); The Log of a Jack Tar, or the Life of James Choyce, Master Mariner, now first published, with O’Brien’s Captivity in France (1891), ed. V. Lovett Cameron; and Personal Recollections of the late Duc de Broglie, 4 vols (1887). 25 Visitors during the Christmas season include Jean- Aubry and Catherine Willard. 29 JC receives from Doubleday two 1920 volumes issued by his firm: ’s Letters of Travel, 1892– 1913, and The Victory at Sea, by Rear- Admiral William Sowden Sims. 31 Borys begins his new job in Mortlake.

During this year, JC reads Benjamin Moore’s The Origin and Meaning of Life (1913).

1921 January First volumes of JC’s Collected Editions published by Heinemann and Doubleday appear this month.

5 (Wed) In London for two days, planning the family’s Corsica trip, haunting ‘shipp[in]g offices and the RAC touring dep[t]’ (to Pinker: CL, VII, 237) and seeing Pawling and Gardiner; he stays overnight at Burys Court. 162 A Conrad Chronology

8 Walpole visits for the weekend, with JC agreeing to write a preface to A Hugh Walpole Anthology (published in May 1921). 14 Attends a gathering at Brown’s Hotel in London with Garnett, Pinker and Jean- Aubry, with Pinker accompanying JC back to Oswalds. 23 The Conrads depart for a three- month stay on Corsica, where Jessie will convalesce and JC immerse himself in Napoleonic history and endeavour to resume work on Suspense. Borys drives them via Calais and the battlefields of Armentières. 24 Late afternoon arrival in Rouen. 25 Leave Rouen on the way south; Jean- Aubry accompanies them as far as Lyons. 26 The party lodges overnight at Orléans. 29 Arrives in Lyons in the early evening. 30 At the Splendide Hôtel in Marseilles for about three days, where JC visits old haunts and from where they sail to Corsica.

February 4 (Fri) By this date they settle in the Grand- Hôtel d’Ajaccio, joined a fortnight later by the Pinkers. During their stay, they meet the Irish artist Alice Kinkead and French man- of- letters H.- R. Lenormand, who lends JC two of Freud’s works (which are apparently returned unread) and presents him with copies of his Trois drames (1918) and Le Penseur et la crétine (1920). Confessing to being ‘restless, exasperated, bored’ (to Jean- Aubry: CL, VII, 259), JC apparently finds some solace in wandering around the harbour, immersing himself in Ajaccio’s port- life. 11 Visits ’s house in Ajaccio. 25 NLL published by Dent (in America by Doubleday, Page, 22 April), attracting reviews by Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster (CR, IV, 175– 9, 197– 200). 26 Begins to borrow numerous books on Napoleon from the town library, including Stendhal’s Vie de Napoléon (1876), Gaspard Gourgaud’s Journal inedit de Ste- Hélène (1899), Marcellin Pellet’s Napoléon à l’île d’Elbe: mélanges historiques (1888), Paul Gruyer’s Napoléon, roi de l’île d’Elbe (1906) and Lanzac de Laborie’s Paris sous Napoléon (1905). c.31 Miss Hallowes arrives to be on hand for work on Suspense. 1921 163

March 18 (Fri) Reports that he has been unable to do any serious work: ‘Head empty. Feelings as if dead’ (to Garnett: CL, VII, 262). Finishes the promised foreword for Walpole’s anthology (CDOUP). 20 By this date, the Conrads have returned to Ajaccio after visiting Cap Corse and staying in Bastia, on the island’s north- east coast. 24 They celebrate their silver wedding anniversary.

This spring or late in the preceding winter JC apparently meets Chodźko in (a special trip from Corsica?), and then (or in April) is taken to the Giens Peninsular by Mme Alvar to refresh his recollections of the area for .

April 7 (Thurs) The Conrads leave Corsica. 10 Travelling back via Nice, Toulon, Avignon and Lyons, they arrive home to find that the Mortlake company has collapsed and that Borys is unemployed. 11 Pinker arrives for a two- day visit to discuss JC’s ‘very muddled’ affairs (to Jean- Aubry: CL, VII, 269), followed by Jean- Aubry at the weekend. 21 In London, JC and Pinker go to see Norman McKinnel in The Ninth Earl at the Comedy Theatre, being then chauffeured back to Burys Court in JC’s car. 22 At Burys Court, JC and Pinker hear that the Famous Players- Laski do not wish to take an option to film Gaspar the Strong Man; on the next day, their London representative – Robert MacAlarney – informs Pinker that the script is considered to be commercially weak. 24 JC returns to Oswalds. 25 Meets McKinnel in London to find out more of his plans for stag- ing The Secret Agent. He also visits Dent and Heinemann offices, lunches with Borys and, in the afternoon, goes to Mortlake. In the final week of this month, JC returns to London to see Pinker, the Colvins and the Galsworthys. May 10 (Tues) Despite his researches on Corsica and optimism to Pinker, JC has made little headway with Suspense (at this stage entitled The Island of Rest) and informs the Galsworthys, ‘I can’t get my 164 A Conrad Chronology

teeth into the novel – I am altogether in the dark as to what it is about’ (CL, VII, 282). He will work on it intermittently right up to his death. 21 Borys visits for the weekend to discuss his dwindling prospects at the Surrey Scientific Apparatus Company. 24 At work on the last chapter of Part I of Suspense.

June 1 (Wed) Alice Kinkead arrives for a week’s stay, during which she will paint Jessie’s portrait; later in the month, Walpole, Pinker, Jean- Aubry and the Colvins pay visits. 10 Acknowledges receipt of ’s Polish play Księga Hioba, which he has probably already started to translate as The Book of Job and will finish by the 23th. 17 Curle visits for lunch on his return from a year in Burma. 27 Sees Galsworthy’s The Family Man at the Comedy Theatre and there passes on The Book of Job to McKinnel; the latter has asked Galsworthy for his opinion of The Secret Agent stage- drama.

July 7 (Thurs) Sits for a portrait medallion by Theodore Spicer- Simson, who returns on the 14th. 9 The Pinkers pay a weekend visit. 16 Kinkead arrives for the weekend, bringing the finished portrait of Jessie (now privately owned). 23 Probably written at the request of Lord Northcliffe, ‘The Dover Patrol’ completed; it is published on the day of the unveiling of a monument to the Dover Patrol by the Prince of Wales (The Times, 27 July [LE]). 27 JC picks up John from Tonbridge School, then goes to Burys Court and returns home two days later in Pinker’s splendid coach- and- four.

The Pinkers stay until 8 August and, with other visitors (Jean- Aubry and the Galsworthys), attend various events at the Canterbury Cricket Festival. The happy social mood is temporarily broken in late July by an angry exchange of letters with Dr Mackintosh about the failure of the Mortlake company and collapse of Borys’s prospects. 1921 165

August– September Late summer brings another round of visitors – Elbridge Adams, Curle, Jean- Aubry, the Hopes, Walpole, S. A. Everitt, and S. Karrakis. In mid- August JC and Ford begin discussing whether their collabo- rated works – Romance and The Inheritors – should be included in JC’s Collected Editions. In response to Garnett (who has been reading the Suspense manuscript), JC is unable to recommend Stefan Żeromski’s Dzieje Grzechu [‘The History of a Sin’] (1908) – which he first read much earlier – for translation on the grounds that it is often ‘gra- tuitously ferocious’ (CL, VII, 336). He responds more favourably to his other reading of the time, Winawer’s Groteski (1921), Hudson’s A Traveller in Little Things (1921) and Frederick O’ Brien’s White Shadows in the South Seas (1919) and Mystic Isles of the South Seas (1921). On 21 September, the American writer and journalist Mary Austin informs JC that she has been commissioned to compose an article about him for the Pictorial Review (she will also visit Oswalds for an interview in 1922); she arranges for the magazine’s editor, Arthur T. Vance, to meet JC, the eventual result of which is the writ- er’s lucrative contract for the serialization of The Rover (see Portrait, pp. 184– 5 and October 1922 entries). At the end of September (just as JC finishes Part II of Suspense), he succumbs to painful gout, which continues into October.

October 8 (Sat) Walpole spends an uncomfortably tense weekend at Oswalds, with JC gouty and short- tempered; Sydney Cockerell is also present. 10 Ready to lay Suspense aside, JC begins dictating a short story (eventually to become The Rover), though he makes little progress on it, with only 5,500 words written by December. 14 JC has sent Borys an inscribed copy of The Shadow- Line to replace the one lost in battle: ‘To my dearest Boy to replace his own 1st Edition copy lost in March 1918 on the Somme front notwith- standing his efforts to save it from the fire. JC.’ 15 Curle and Hope arrive for a weekend visit. 17 Despite feeling unwell, completes a short preface (CDOUP) to Kinkead’s exhibition catalogue Landscapes of Corsica and Ireland (1921). 166 A Conrad Chronology

c.21 Russell and his wife visit, followed later in the month by Hilda Watson, Sir Robert Jones’s daughter. 25 Has received a copy of Harold Waldo’s Stash of the Marsh Country (1921). 27 JC joins Jessie at Brown’s Hotel in London, fulfilling a full pro- gramme of appointments – seeing Pawling, Kinkead, Pinker, Doubleday and Lady Colvin. 28 The Conrads spend the weekend with the Pinkers at Burys Court, arriving home on the 31st.

November 1 (Tues) Suffering from the after- effects of gout, JC has read Galsworthy’s To Let (1921), the last Forsyte volume, and Colvin’s Memories and Notes of Persons and Places, 1852– 1912 (1921). At Galsworthy’s instigation, he agrees to become a member of the PEN Club (International Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists), founded in October, with Galsworthy as its first President. c.16 Russell writes to JC, asking his permission to name his new son ‘Conrad’. 17 JC enthusiastically embraces a scheme to publish a new edi- tion of The Mirror in collaboration with the marine painter and engraver John Everett, who would provide accompanying illustrations. Although both men welcome the idea, the nego- tiations are tortuous, and by December 1922 the scheme will be dropped. 18 Writes to Walpole, praising his The Young Enchanted: A Romantic Story (1921). Has recently read Russell’s The Analysis of Mind (1921) and enjoys a Bernard Berenson study of Italian painters, probably The Study and Criticism of Italian Art (1916). 19 Curle arrives for a weekend visit, with Borys also present; Curle returns the following weekend with Gardiner. 30 Has been reading Dawson’s The Gift of Paul Clermont (1921).

December 3 (Sat) JC’s 64th birthday. 6 Approached by Ford to settle old debts, JC sends £20. Complains to Graham of the persistent depression that follows upon ‘the inability to work seriously’ (CL, VII, 390). 1922 167

9 Has been reading Bishop Ignacy Krasicki’s Monachomachia (1778; reissued in 1921). 10 JC’s response to a questionnaire on ‘The First Thing I Remember’ appears in John O’ London’s Weekly: he offers an early physical memory – that of the three- year- old boy being rubbed with snow as a treatment for frostbite – and a visual one of his mother seated at the piano (CDOUP). 21 JC and Jessie visit Sir Robert Jones in Seddlescombe, Sussex, for an examination of Jessie’s knee. 24 Curle arrives to spend Christmas at Oswalds. 28 McKinnel abandons his plans to produce The Secret Agent, soon to be replaced by J. Harry Benrimo. 30 Visits Pinker in London and then (with Jessie) accompanies him to Burys Court, staying until 2 Jan.

JC’s letter on ‘The Loss of the Dalgonar’ appears in the London Mercury this month (LE). In this year, The Secret Agent: A Drama in Four Acts, dedicated to Pinker, is privately printed for the author by H. J. Goulden. Of 1921 JC will soon say, ‘I couldn’t work properly ... couldn’t even concentrate my thoughts without a great effort. This makes me worried and fretful’ (to Aniela Zagórska: CL, VII, 412).

1922 January After his return from Burys Court on the 2nd and visits from Jean- Aubry and Pinker, JC is laid low with influenza and gout for much of January.

27 (Fri) Reads Constance Garnett’s translation of Chekhov’s The Cook’s Wedding and Other Stories (1922). 28 Pinker leaves for America, taking the unfinished Suspense type- script with him. February 4 (Sat) Walpole spends the weekend at Oswalds, with Curle staying over Sunday night. 8 After a short illness, Pinker dies of pneumonia in a New York hotel, with his daughter Œnone in attendance; two days later JC writes of his ‘sense of irreparable loss’ to Pinker’s son Eric, who will now take over as his agent (CL, VII, 416). 168 A Conrad Chronology

9 Still unwell, JC complains, ‘I have done no work to speak of for months, – such is the dreadful truth which I conceal from as many people as possible’ (to Ada Galsworthy: CL, VII, 415). Borrows from Bernard Holland a copy of his political biography, The Life of Spencer Compton, eighth Duke of Devonshire (1911). 10 The London Times (p. 10) includes in its description of Pinker’s legacy: ‘For 30 years he staked all his faith and trust in the world- wide recognition of Conrad’s genius, and in these last months he witnessed, with the universal success of the uniform edition of Mr Conrad, his dreams come true.’ 15 Jean- Aubry visits. 23 The Conrads stay overnight in London, with Walpole visiting their hotel. 24 Thanks Jean Fayard for sending a copy of his Oxford et Margaret (1922).

March JC now returns purposefully to The Rover, working on it continuously until its completion in mid- July, his daily routine involving regular dictation with Miss Hallowes in the mornings, and correction and revision in the afternoons.

7 (Tues) Garnett lends JC a copy of Jens Peter Jacobsen’s Marie Grubbe: A Lady of the Seventeenth Century (1917). 12 Curle celebrates his birthday at Oswalds. 18 Eric Pinker visits. 23 In London, consults with Eric Pinker and meets Curle for lunch at the RAC. 28 Has read Basil Lubbock’s The Colonial Clippers (1921). 29 Thanks Dawson for a copy of his The Pyramid (1922), dedicated to JC.

April 3 (Mon) Thanks Candler for a copy of his Abdication (1922). 4 JC in bed with gout until the 10th. 10 Jean- Aubry has sent a copy of his Eugène Boudin: la vie et l’oeuvre d’après les lettres et les documents inédits (1922); he arrives for a weekend visit at Oswalds on the 15th. 1922 169

Further illness later in the month holds up progress on The Rover, though JC is able to advise Curle about his article ‘Joseph Conrad in the East’ (Blue Peter, September– October).

May Now recovered, JC works purposefully on The Rover, writing ten chapters in May and June.

1 (Mon) Receives a copy of Juliet M. Soskice’s Chapters from Childhood: Reminiscences of an Artist’s Granddaughter (1921). 6 (and 25) Invites Curle for weekend stays. 10 Enjoys an English translation of Voltaire’s Candide (1759) before forwarding it to Borys. 11 The Conrads leave for London via Burys Court, with JC meeting Curle and Everett, and returning with Eric Pinker for an over- night stay at Burys Court. 19 Declines offer of an honorary degree from Oxford University. 24 Has read Garnett’s Friday Nights: Criticism and Appreciations (1922).

Receives a copy of ’s A Voice from the Congo compris- ing stories, anecdotes, and descriptive notes (1910) and proofs of J. G. Sutherland’s At Sea with Joseph Conrad (1922), ‘preposterous bosh’ that he firmly declines to read (to Curle: CL, VII, 484).

June 2 (Fri) Has been reading the manuscript of Dawson’s The Rock (1922). 10 Jean- Aubry pays a weekend visit and again on the 17th; JC has been reading the latter’s La Musique et les nations (1922). 27 Finishes drafting The Rover, revising and expanding until 16 July. 28 Compliments Graham on his The Conquest of New Granada, being the Life of Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada (1922).

July 2 (Sun) Graham and Mrs Dummett pay a visit. 4 Conrads in London for the coming week, staying at the Curzon Hotel. 7 Makes a first contact with Walter Tittle and sits for a sketch by the American portraitist. 170 A Conrad Chronology

8 The Conrads (with Borys) lunch with the Wedgwoods. 9 Lunches with Graham and Mrs Dummett at Claridge’s Hotel to discuss a to the heavy debts recently incurred by Borys. While in London, JC is introduced to the French composer by Jean- Aubry. 12 The Conrads return home. 22 Borys visits for the weekend, looking forward to his new job with the Daimler Motor Company in mid- August. 25 Sits for a portrait by Tittle. 29 The American author Hamlin Garland and his daughter Mary Isabel visit Oswalds.

August 1 (Tues) Finishes preface to Curle’s Into the East (1923), later titled ‘Travel’ (LE). 4 Visit by the American professor, Samuel C. Chew. 7 Catherine Willard leaves after a weekend stay; JC browses through the new Collected Edition of Galsworthy’s (1922). 8 In London, draws up his will at the solicitors Withers & Co., with Curle and Ralph Wedgwood named as executors. 14 Lord Northcliffe dies. 18 Hudson dies. 24 JC in London, meeting Curle at the RAC. 27 Again in London, the Conrads meet with the Galsworthys and Garland family. 29 Lady Millais visits Oswalds for lunch, followed on the 31st by Garnett, who is eager to read the The Rover typescript.

September 2 (Sat) Borys marries Joan Madeline King (a nurse whom he has met in France during the War), though the news is kept from JC for several months. 3 A Japanese admirer, Professor Tadaichi Hidaka, visits Oswalds. 6 JC in London, consulting with J. M. Dent on the publisher’s Uniform Edition of his work. 9 Walpole arrives for the weekend, with Curle and Gardiner also present. 12 JC contemplates Sybil Thorndike for the role of Mrs Verloc in the stage version of The Secret Agent. 1922 171

14 The Conrads leave for Liverpool from where, as guests of Sir Robert Jones, they take a three- day tour of North Wales, return- ing to London on the 19th. After his long summer break, JC now resolves to return to Suspense. 24 Has read Hamlin Garland’s A Son of the Middle Border (1917). Declines an invitation to address the Anglo- Swedish Society.

This month, C. K Scott- Moncrieff sends JC an inscribed copy of his English translation of Proust’s Swann’s Way (1922).

October 8 (Sun) The actor- director J. Harry Benrimo has agreed to take over as the new producer of the stage The Secret Agent.

In a busy month dominated by the forthcoming stage production of The Secret Agent, JC is frequently in London, meeting Benrimo and attending rehearsals of the play. He also meets several friends – the Garland fam- ily (4th), the now- invalid Hope (11th), Jean- Aubry (21st), Tittle (23rd), Valéry, Ravel and the ever- present Curle. In between trips he manages to read ’s Lady into Fox (1922) and corresponds at length with Russell about the latter’s The Problem of China (1922). 22 Signs a petition in support of a Civil List pension for C. M. Doughty, the poet and travel writer. 23 Has received a copy of Clarence Andrews’s Old Morocco and the Forbidden Atlas (1922), dedicated to JC. 25 Writes a short letter to The Oswestrian in praise of the writer Frederick Burnaby. 28 Visits Tonbridge School, meeting his old Elstree friend Agnes Ridgeway.

By late October, serial rights to The Rover have been purchased for £2,000 by the Pictorial Review (NY), a popular women’s magazine.

November 1 (Wed) Attends the dress rehearsal of The Secret Agent at the Ambassadors Theatre. 2 When the play opens, he chooses not to attend, being inter- viewed by R. L. Mégroz at the Curzon Hotel. 3 Makes cuts to the play after its unfavourable reception. The next day Jessie goes to witness their effect. 172 A Conrad Chronology

5 Accompanied by Jean- Aubry, Valéry pays a Sunday visit to Oswalds. 11 The play is taken off after ten performances. 12 Walter Tittle, Allan Wade and his wife pay a Sunday visit. 14 By this date finishes ‘Outside Literature’ (Manchester Guardian, 4 Dec [LE]). 16 Thanks F. Tennyson Jesse for sending a copy of her satiric fable The White Riband; Or, a Young Female’s Folly (1921). 18 The Conrads give hospitality to Sir Maurice Cameron and his wife, driving them around Kent in search of rooms for Alice Kinkead. 21 Has been reading ‘nothing but Marcel Proust’ (to Sandeman: CL, VII, 599) and three days later comments on Zofia Kossak- Szczucka’s Pożoga [‘Blaze’] (1922). 27 In London for two days, seeing Eric Pinker and other friends; on the 28th JC attends a Hudson memorial meeting at Dent’s office, where he meets J. C. Squire and Ernest Rhys.

December 3 (Sun) JC’s 65th birthday. 6 In London, meets Curle at the RAC and then lunches with Doubleday who presses him to make a promotional visit to America next spring. 7 Has an interview with Dent about the latter’s forthcoming Uniform Edition and then lunches with Galsworthy, who also encourages JC to visit America. 8 Plays with the idea of taking up residence in France for two years in order to reduce his tax liabilities; first mentions ‘The Suspense’ as the title of his work- in- progress. Has recently met Valéry and the composer Ravel (at a party given by Lady Sybil Colefax). 23 Pawling dies, evoking JC’s tribute, ‘A memorable association of my early literary life goes down into the grave with him’ (to C. S. Evans: The Conradian, 38.1 [2013], 157). 25 Christmas at home, with Curle in attendance, and Borys making a New Year’s Eve visit. 30 Responds positively to the first Polish translation of Almayer’s Folly (by Aniela Zagórska), a copy of which he sends to Garnett. JC’s other reading at this time includes Jules Laforgue’s Berlin, la coeur et la ville and Poésies complètes (both 1922), both introduced by Jean- Aubry. 1923 173

1923

January– February The new year opens with a visit from Borys, Jean- Aubry, Wilfred Partington (the editor of Bookman’s Journal) and Scott- Moncrieff, whose Marcel Proust, an English Tribute (1923) includes extracts from JC’s letter on ‘Proust as Creator’ (CDOUP). By mid- February JC has virtually decided to make the trip to America and asks Curle to accompany him (the latter declines). During this period, he applies himself to serious work on Suspense, reaching the end of Part III by the beginning of March. JC’s reading includes Proust’s Sodome et Gomorrhe ( 1921– 2), Christopher Morley’s Shandygaff (1918), Tadeusz Żuk- Skarszewski’s Rumak Swiatowida: karykatura wczorajsza [‘Swiatowid’s Steed: A Caricature of Yesterday’] (1919), Julian Street’s Mysterious Japan (1921) and Valéry’s poetry. High- powered marketing campaigns of JC’s works begin at the start of the year: in Britain, J. M. Dent issues a promotional pamphlet advertising the forth- coming Uniform Edition of his works, the first volume of which will appear in May; in America, Doubleday issues a similar pam- phlet to promote The Rover and to advertise JC’s forthcoming visit to America (‘He counts here many close friends. At last he is coming’).

March 7 (Wed) Has read Ernst P. Bendz’s Joseph Conrad: An Appreciation (1923). 8 Alfred Knopf and visit Oswalds, persuading JC to contribute a preface to Thomas Beer’s biography Stephen Crane: A Study in American Letters (1923). 12 After a weekend entertaining Gordon Gardiner, begins the Crane preface and finishes it on the 23rd (LE). 13 Reports that he has finished Part III of Suspense. 15 Declines an honorary degree from Cambridge University, having already refused several such offers. 19 JC in London seeing Eric Pinker and making final arrangements for his American trip. 23 By this date has read Ruth M. Stauffer’s Joseph Conrad: His Romantic Realism (1922). 25 Thanks Julian Street for sending his biography of Theodore Roosevelt, The Most Interesting American (1915). 174 A Conrad Chronology

April 7 (Sat) Time magazine (NY) prints a portrait of JC on its cover, with an accompanying article on his forthcoming American visit (‘He looks forward to it in a spirit of adventure’ [15]). 8 Borys visits before his father’s departure for America. JC has recently seen Ada Galsworthy, to whom he presents an inscribed copy of Maupassant’s Bel Ami (1885). 16 He leaves home for the forthcoming trip, travels to Colchester to see Hope (who has suffered a severe stroke) and later dines with Curle at London’s Curzon Hotel. 17 The Conrads invite Ralph Pinker to lunch at the hotel. In the afternoon, JC gives a speech to the National Lifeboat Association at the Æolian Hall (CDOUP) and later attends a soirée at the home of Mme Alvar, where guests include Bennett and Ravel. 18 In London for the next two days, bids farewell to friends – Mrs Pinker, Garnett, Gardiner, Mrs Dummett and the Wedgwoods. Bennett sends an inscribed copy of his Things that Have Interested Me, Second Series (1923). 19 By this date, Jessie has learned of Borys’s secret marriage but decides to delay telling JC until his return from America. 20 JC travels to Glasgow, accompanied by Curle; he dines with admirers, including Neil Munro, James Bone and . 21 Sails from Glasgow for America in the Tuscania, commanded by an old friend, David Bone, whose brother Muirhead also makes the trip to entertain and draw JC. His departure is itself an ‘event’, with an official photographer accompanying him from St Enoch’s Hotel to the docks, where he is greeted by a farewell party of friends and well- wishers. During the voyage writes ‘My Hotel in Mid- Atlantic’ (London Evening News, 15 May), later titled ‘Ocean Travel’ (LE). May Arrives in New York on the 1st to a noisy and boisterous quayside reception: ‘To be aimed at by forty cameras held by forty men that look as if they came out of the slums is a nerve- shattering experience’ (to Jessie: CL, VIII, 87). Some of his friends (including Eric Pinker, John Powell, Christopher Morley and Walter Tittle) provide a welcoming party. JC goes to stay with the Doubledays at Effendi Hill, Oyster Bay, 1923 175

Long Island. In the coming month he is feted in princely fashion and lionized by old friends, distant admirers and celebrated Americans. Doubleday organizes press interviews, sittings for a portrait by Oscar Edward Cesare and a ten- day tour of New England.

3 (Thurs) Doubleday arranges a dinner at Effendi Hill, with a piano recital by Powell. 5 In the morning, JC addresses ‘fellow’ employees at Doubleday, Page in Garden City, NY; in the evening, attends a large dinner- party hosted by Colonel Edward House and John W. Davis (for- mer American ambassador to England). About this time, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ring Lardner attempt to pay their respects to JC by performing a drunken on the lawn of Doubleday’s estate, but are swiftly escorted off the premises. 6 Lunch at the Long Island Club. 7 Interviewed by a large group of journalists, followed by an even- ing dinner- party in JC’s honour. 8 In New York at the Doubledays’ flat for two days, meeting admir- ers and sightseeing. 9 Lunches with Colonel House and meets Ignacy Paderewski. Returns to Effendi Hill in the evening. 10 In New York again, lectures on ‘Author and Cinematograph’ and reads from Victory at the Manhattan home of Mrs Arthur Curtiss James to an audience of 200, informing Curle the next day: ‘Laughs at proper places and snuffles at the last when I read the whole chapter of Lena’s death’ (CL, VIII, 94). 11 Returns to Effendi Hill. 15 Leaves for a motor- car tour of New England and Boston with the Doubledays, staying overnight with William Lyon Phelps and his wife Annabel in New Haven. 16 Now in Boston at the Copley- Plaza Hotel, he visits Harvard University, the homes of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Russell Lowell, and Boston harbour. 19 Asked by the Chicago Daily Tribune to name for its ‘Confessions’ column the novel he would most like to have written, F. Scott Fitzgerald nominates Nostromo, ‘the greatest novel since “Vanity Fair” (possibly excluding “Madame Bovary”)’ (MDF, p. 140). 22 The party stays overnight with Elbridge Adams and his wife Margery, with the evening’s events recorded by John Sheridan 176 A Conrad Chronology

Zelie in a later reminiscence. JC returns to Effendi Hill on the 24th, where he relaxes until his departure for home. 28 Doubleday hosts a luncheon for JC at Garden City, attended by the novelist Edna Ferber, Muirhead Bone and Julian Street; later, JC gives an interview to six reporters in Doubleday’s office. 30 JC gives his ‘final’ interview to reporters.

June 2 (Sat) With the Doubledays as travel companions, sails from New York in the Majestic, leaving ‘with a strong impression of American large- heartedness and generosity’ (to Adams: CL, VIII, 106). 6 Jessie stays at London’s Curzon Hotel in readiness for JC’s return. 9 He arrives in Southampton and travels to London’s Norfolk Hotel to be met by news that Borys has been secretly married since last September. Distressed and shaken, JC spends much of June sorting out his feelings about the affair, paying for his exer- tions with an attack of gout. 11 Although believing Borys’s marriage to be ‘foolish and incon- siderate’, JC, eager to avoid a direct break with his son, arranges for a quarterly allowance of $250 to be paid to him: ‘Marrying is not a crime and one can not cast out one’s son for that’ (to Eric Pinker: CL, VIII, 112). 12 The Doubledays stay two nights at Oswalds. 13 J. St Loe Strachey writes to JC upon hearing that the latter has expressed admiration for his The Adventure of Living: A Subjective Autobiography (1923). 21 JC has written to Borys telling him to regard the allowance as a wedding- present.

July 3 (Tues) Written to cover recent expenses, JC finishes ‘Christmas Day at Sea’ (Daily Mail, 24 Dec [LE]). 4 Jessie writes: ‘We haven’t seen Borys yet and I can see JC feels things very deeply’ (to Eric Pinker, unpublished). 9 Despite a sore wrist, JC resumes work on Suspense. 12 In London to lunch with Arthur Page and Eric Pinker at the RAC. 14 Returns a draft of Curle’s ‘The History of Mr. Conrad’s Books’ (Times Literary Supplement, 30 Aug), with a lengthy list of features in it that have ‘alarmed’ him (CL, VIII, 131). 1923 177

15 Borys and his new wife pay their first visit to Oswalds, bringing John with them. 18 Arthur Page and his wife visit, followed by Garnett on the 19th. 27 Further family concerns arise when John, almost 17, confesses that he has fallen ‘hopelessly in love’ with the nursery governess (Audrey Seal) in his school- house (Jessie to Tittle, unpublished). 30 Curle leaves after a weekend stay, followed by a visit by Borys and his wife in the afternoon.

August 4 (Sat) Borys and his wife stay for a few days. JC comments, ‘That episode [of his marriage] is closed – to everyone’s great relief’ (to Jean- Aubry: CL, VIII, 150). 5 Visit by the Garland family, with Clifford expected in a few days. 28 Deferring work on Suspense, JC quickly composes ‘The Torrens: A Personal Tribute’ (Blue Peter, Oct [LE]), finishing on the 29th.

September 2 (Sun) Wise and his wife visit Oswalds. 3 In London to meet Curle and Eric Pinker at the RAC. 9 The Conrads go to London’s Curzon Hotel (where they are vis- ited by Curle and Walpole), prior to leaving for France. 11 They travel to Le Havre to see the home of Pastor Charles Bost, where John will lodge in order to improve his French, also call- ing on Jean- Aubry’s parents; JC goes to visit Gide in Cuverville only to find that he is not at home. 16 On returning to Oswalds, JC retires to bed with a and asthmatic cough for four days. 23 Has recently read Galsworthy’s Captures; thanks Rothenstein for sending a copy of Hubert Wellington’s William Rothenstein (both 1923). 27 The Conrads migrate to London’s Curzon Hotel for five days while water- pipes are repaired at Oswalds; during the stay, JC sees Eric Pinker, Curle and Jean- Aubry.

Serialization of The Rover begins this month in the Pictorial Review (NY), advertised as ‘Joseph Conrad’s Greatest Romance’, finishing in December. 178 A Conrad Chronology

October 9 (Tues) By this date finishes ‘His War- book’ (LE), preface to a new edition of Crane’s (1925). 11 Galsworthy sends JC the first two volumes of his Limited Manaton Edition, with the promise of more to follow. 20 Despite some illness in the month, JC manages a social week- end at Oswalds, with Curle, Mme Alvar, Walpole, Jean- Aubry and Valéry in attendance. Walpole records that JC’s eyes ‘lit over Fenimore Cooper and over Proust who stirred him to deep excitement’ (Stape 2009, 180).

November Published in the first week of this month, A. J. Dawson’s Britain’s Life- Boats: The Story of a Century of Heroic Service includes a foreword by JC (CDOUP).

8 (Thurs) Ford writes to propose re- publication of ; he also sends JC a copy of his Mister Bosphorus and the Muses (1923). 11 Tittle visits. 12 Auction of selected items from Quinn’s collection of Conradiana begins in New York’s Anderson Galleries, yielding the American collector substantial profits: manuscripts and signed first edi- tions bought for a total of $10,000 sell for $110,000. 19 Borys visits, borrowing £100 from his father; while there, he develops symptoms of influenza, bringing his wife to Oswalds the next morning. 20 Despite persistent illness, JC finishes ‘Geography and Some Explorers’ (Countries of the World, Feb 1924 [LE]). Roman Dyboski sends an inscribed copy of his Poland and the Problem of National Minorities (1923). 22 Thanks Christopher Morley for a copy of his Inward Ho! (1923). 30 Illness has kept JC in bed, where he enjoys Garnett’s edition of 153 Letters from W. H. Hudson (1923). December 1 (Sat) Publication of The Rover by Doubleday, Page (by Unwin in Britain, 3 Dec), dedicated to Jean- Aubry; its serialization finishes this month. 1924 179

3 JC’s 66th birthday. 7 Thanks Christopher Ward for an inscribed copy of his The Triumph of the Nut and Other Parodies (1923). 10 Laid up with gout and using a wheelchair for the next few days, he is visited by Eric Pinker on the 12th. 15 Tittle again visits to finish off one of his JC drawings. 25 Christmas Day finds the Conrads unwell, although they enter- tain a small party, including Jean- Aubry, and Gertrude and Muirhead Bone. 29 Has received an inscribed copy of David Bone’s The Lookoutman (1923). 1924 January 2 (Wed) Still an invalid and now entering the last year of his life, JC finishes reading Bennett’s Riceyman Steps (1923). 6 Gives the first of several sittings this month for a portrait by Tittle (now in London’s National Portrait Gallery). 11 The Conrads’ first grandchild, Philip James, is born. 13 The Rover proves to be a popular and commercial success, with 48,000 copies sold in America, and 30,000 in Britain. 16 They go to London’s Curzon Hotel for a few days and see the new baby. 17 Jessie’s knee is examined, after which JC lunches with Curle at the RAC and then sits for Tittle. 19 Return home from London. 22 Purchases four books: Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du Jacobinisme, 4 vols (1797), by Abbé Augustin Barruel; Gallant Tom; or The Perils of a Sailor Ashore and Afloat: An Original Nautical Romance of Deep and Pathetic Interest (1847), by Thomas Prest; Recollections of a Parisian under Six Sovereigns, Two Revolutions, and a Republic, 1789– 1863 (1911), by François Poumiès de la Siboutie; Charles Stewart Parnell: His Love Story and Political Life (1914), by Katharine O’Shea. 28 The American collector George Keating has written to JC informing him of his plans to produce a lavish illustrated cata- logue of the Conradiana in his possession (now housed at Yale University). The limited edition catalogue, A Conrad Memorial Library, will appear in 1929. 180 A Conrad Chronology

29 Attracted by the fee involved, JC agrees to Ford’s proposal that The Nature of a Crime be re- published by Duckworth.

February Resumes work on Suspense, re- arranging some of the material already composed.

1 (Fri) Receives a copy of E. H. Visiak’s Milton Agonistes: A Metaphysical Criticism (1923). 2 Borys and his wife bring the new baby to Oswalds. 4 Ford pays an unexpected visit to discuss the re- publication of The Nature of a Crime. 5 Visited by an admirer, the youthful American poet, Mary Channing Wister. 9 Thanks Jacques Copeau for a copy of his play La Maison natale (1923). 10 Tittle pays a visit to Oswalds. 19 Has read Allan Monkhouse’s The Conquering Hero: A Play in Four Acts (1923). 22 Receives two volumes on Polish literature by Roman Dyboski. 26 On the eve of JC’s departure for London, Muirhead Bone presses him to invite the sculptor to his hotel with a view to arranging sittings for a bust. The two men meet during JC’s short London stay. 27 In London, Jessie consults Sir Robert Jones, while JC meets Eric Pinker, Jean- Aubry and other friends.

March Most of the month is given over to sittings for the sculptor Epstein, but JC is unable to stand the strain, and Epstein has to return home before the bust (now in the National Portrait Gallery, London) is finished. Epstein later recalled: ‘He was crippled with rheumatism, crochety, nervous, and ill. He said to me, “I am finished’’’ (Epstein: An Autobiography [1940], p. 74).

4 (Tues) Clifford, the Governor of , sends a copy of his Address to the Legislative Council of Nigeria (1923) – a ‘counterblast to the nasty fairy tales’ about Africa (to Curle: CL, VIII, 321). 15 Curle arrives for the weekend, followed by Jean- Aubry on the 22nd. 1924 181

April 27 (Sun) The Conrads have been in London for two days, with Jessie consulting her surgeons. 30 Ford turns up unannounced to see JC for the last time; they dis- cuss the rights and royalties connected with future printings of their collaborated works.

This month JC sits for a portrait by Kinkead (held at the University of Texas at Austin).

May 3 (Sat) Curle visits for lunch, with Eric Pinker and his wife follow- ing on the 8th. 5 JC finishes a preface to The Shorter Tales of Joseph Conrad (LE), a posthumous volume published by Doubleday in October 1924. Clifford spends two days at Oswalds, hearing about JC’s American trip. 11 Reads David Garnett’s A Man in the Zoo (1924). 14 Finishes preface to The Nature of a Crime (transatlantic review, July [CDOUP]) and sends it to Ford on the 17th. The latter presents an inscribed copy of Some Do Not (1924). 17 Jean- Aubry arrives for a weekend visit. 27 Declines offer of a knighthood from the Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald. 30 Thanks Louis Roché for sending his poems, Temps perdu (1924) and is especially attracted by one of them, ‘Ciel de nuit’ [‘Night Sky’]; has read Gide’s Incidences (1924). 31 Has received a copy of Francis McCullagh’s The Bolshevik Persecution of Christianity (1924).

June 8 (Sun) JC expresses his appreciation for Galsworthy’s The Forest (1924), the script of a play performed in March. 11 In London for lunch at the Polish Legation, brings Jean- Aubry back from London to dine with Sir Robert Jones at Oswalds. 13 Jones operates on Jessie’s leg, with JC, Borys and John visiting her. 22 Polish historian Stefan Pomaranski´ sends JC a manuscript of his father’s poem ‘Zgliszcza’ [‘Charred Rubble’] and other relics. 182 A Conrad Chronology

July 4 (Fri) While Jessie recuperates in the nursing home, Curle visits to cheer up a depressed JC (and returns on the weekend of the 12th); Graham and Grace Willard also visit on Sunday. 8 At work on ‘Legends’, unfinished at his death (Daily Mail, 15 Aug [LE]), but feeling ‘languid and depressed’ (to Eric Pinker: CL, VIII, 401). 23 In what is the last interview granted by JC, the American jour- nalist Clare Ogden Davis visits Oswalds. (Her interview is unlo- cated.) In response to JC’s request, Curle sends Hilary St- John Bridger Philby’s two- volume The Heart of Arabia: A Record of Travel and Exploration (1922). 24 Jessie arrives home after convalescence. 26 Irene Rakowska- Luniewska (a distant cousin of JC’s) and her friend make a weekend visit. 29 J. St Loe Strachey sends proofs of his The River of Life (1924).

August 1 (Fri) Lady Colvin dies, but JC is not informed. Curle arrives for what will be his last weekend with JC. 2 Seized with chest pains during a car- ride with Curle in the morn- ing, JC is attended by doctors; Borys, his wife and son arrive with John later in the day, when JC complains of difficulties. 3 The 66- year- old JC dies of a heart attack at 8.30 a.m. 7 His funeral service takes place at St Thomas’s Roman Catholic Church, Canterbury. Mourners include Garnett, Curle, Graham, Hugh Dent, Jean- Aubry, Alice Rothenstein, Meldrum, the Wedgwoods, Wise, Gardiner, James Bone, Retinger and Cockerell. ‘To those who attended Conrad’s funeral in Canterbury during the Cricket Festival of 1924, and drove through the crowded streets festooned with flags, there was something symbolical of England’s hospitality and in the crowd’s ignorance of even the existence of this great writer. A few old friends, acquaint- ances and pressmen stood by his grave,’ writes Garnett (Letters from John Galsworthy, 1900– 1932, ed. Edward Garnett [1934], pp. 14– 15). The epigraph used in The Rover from Spenser’s (1590) forms the epitaph on JC’s tombstone: ‘Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas,/Ease after warre, death after life doth greatly please.’ 1924 183

14 Virginia Woolf’s memorial reflections on JC appear in the Times Literary Supplement. 16 Graham’s obituary essay ‘Inveni Portum: Joseph Conrad’ appears in the Saturday Review. 25 Curle begins circulating his privately- printed pamphlet, Joseph Conrad’s Last Day.

September Jean- Aubry’s memorial tribute to JC appears in this month’s Fortnightly Review.

26 (Fri) The Nature of a Crime (with Ford) published by Duckworth (in America by Doubleday, Page simultaneously).

October 5 (Sun) Ford completes Joseph Conrad: A Personal Remembrance in Bruges, published in November. 21 Laughing Anne, & One Day More published by Castle (by Doubleday, Page in America, 8 May 1925).

November 17 (Mon) The Times reports the gross value of JC’s estate at his death as £20,045 (net value, £17,854).

December 1 (Mon) A memorial issue of La Nouvelle Revue Française collects numerous essays by JC’s British and French admirers in its ‘Hommage à Joseph Conrad, 1857– 1924’. 4 Jessie attacks Ford’s memoir as a ‘detestable book’ in a letter to the Times Literary Supplement (A Portrait, p. 251).

In the years immediately following JC’s death and prior to 1930, a number of unpublished writings are printed and scattered items collected, notable collections being Tales of Hearsay, introduced by Graham (1925) and Last Essays (1926). Conrad’s early unfinished novel, The Sisters, is published in 1928, with an introduction by Ford. The novel left uncompleted at JC’s death, Suspense, begins serialization in the Saturday Review of Literature (New York) on 27 June 1925 and ends on 12 September, with the magazine also running a competition 184 A Conrad Chronology challenging readers to suggest an ending for the novel. Publication in book form follows a few days later by Dent in London, and Doubleday, Page in New York. Numerous volumes of letters and memoirs soon follow, with Jean- Aubry already planning his two- volume Joseph: Conrad: Life and Letters in 1925 and publishing it in 1927. In the next three years further important collections of correspondence appear – by Jessie (1927), Curle (1928), Garnett (1928) and Jean- Aubry (1930). Of the memoirs published during the late ’twenties Joseph Conrad as I Knew Him (1926) by Jessie, who outlives her husband by 12 years, purports to be the most ‘intimate’, though many of Conrad’s friends believe at the time that it renders him a serious injustice. The other important memoir is by JC’s Boswell- figure, Curle, who pays his homage in The Last Twelve Years of Joseph Conrad (1928). George T. Keating’s effort in fine book- making, A Conrad Memorial Library (1929), which com- bines bibliography and hagiography, is designed to stand as a final memorial monument to the ‘master’. Select Who’s Who

Anderson, Jane (Foster) (1893– 1972), an attractive Georgia- born journalist and wife of the composer Deems Taylor arrived in Europe in 1915 to work as a war correspondent for the press baron Lord Northcliffe and was introduced to the Conrads in April 1916. Her animated contacts with the family produced contrasting reactions. While Conrad relished her presence and pronounced her ‘quite yum- yum’ (CL, V, 637), Jessie came to feel that ‘our fair American friend had been amusing herself at my expense’ (JCC, p. 207). In Paris in 1917, Borys was smitten by the charms of ‘the American flying girl’, as was Retinger in a more serious way. Divorced in 1918, she married a Spanish nobleman and, as a supporter of the Fascist cause during the 1930s, was imprisoned by the loyalists on a charge of espionage. Her later wartime activities in broadcasting propaganda for the Third Reich in Germany led to her being charged with treason in 1943 in an American indictment that also named Ezra Pound and six other . For a fuller account of her life, see John Halverson and Ian Watt, ‘Notes on Jane Anderson, 1955– 1990’, Conradiana, 23 (1991), 59– 87.

Barrie, J(ames) M(atthew) ( 1860– 1937; knighted 1913), Scottish novelist and dramatist, seems to have entered Conrad’s sphere in 1903 with moral and considerable financial support (a sum of £150), though their subsequent contacts were probably few and fleeting. In 1904, Conrad sent his first dramatic adaptation, One Day More, for a reading by the dramatist who in that same year had just enjoyed a succès d’estime with Peter Pan.

185 186 A Conrad Chronology

Bennett, (Enoch) Arnold ( 1867– 1931), the chronicler of Potteries life in such works as The Old Wives’ Tale (1908) and The Clayhanger Trilogy ( 1910– 16), was – with Wells and Garnett – an early admirer and champion of Conrad’s fiction, which he regularly reviewed as assistant editor of the Academy in the late 1890s. Probably the author of the Academy’s tribute to Tales of Unrest on the occasion of its ‘crowning’ in 1899, Bennett may also have been the ‘anonymous’ reviewer of Lord Jim referred to in Conrad’s Author’s Note. Introduced to each other by Wells, their paths crossed only infrequently, though Bennett remained an appreciative and discriminating reader of Conrad’s work, judging Nostromo to be ‘the finest novel of this gen- eration (bar none)’ (Portrait, p. 87). For his part, Conrad read some of Bennett’s novels and corresponded with him on the virtues and vices of naturalistic method. See also Owen Knowles, ‘Arnold Bennett as an “Anonymous” Reviewer of Conrad’s Early Fiction’, The Conradian, 10 (1985), 26– 36.

Blackwood, William (1836– 1912), grandson of the original publisher and founder of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, brought out several of Conrad’s works in serial and book form between 1897 and 1902. ‘Karain’, Youth, a Narrative and Other Stories and Lord Jim belong to what Conrad would later regard as the happiest period of his career, ‘associated in ... [his] grateful memory with the late Mr. William Blackwood’s encouraging and helpful kindness’ (Author’s Note, YOS, p. v). In Blackwood, Conrad found not only a publisher, mentor and banker, but a sustaining father- figure who, rather like a benevolent ship’s captain, presided over a largely male family or club of authors. The family included Blackwood’s two nephews, George William (1876– 1942) and James Hugh (1878– 1951). During the composition of ‘The End of the Tether’ in 1902, the close relationship between publisher and writer unravelled as Blackwood became impatient with Conrad’s erratic work- rhythms and also baulked at having repeatedly to rescue his finances. See Joseph Conrad: Letters to William Blackwood and David S. Meldrum, ed. William Blackburn (Durham, NC, 1958); and David Finkelstein, The House of Blackwood: Author– Publisher Relations in the Victorian Era (Pennsylvania State University, 2002).

Bobrowska, Teofila (died 1875), wife of Józef Bobrowski (1790–1850) and Conrad’s maternal grandmother, looked after her beloved Select Who’s Who 187

‘Konradek’ during his childhood years, nursed him through several illnesses and was appointed the boy’s guardian in 1870, shortly after the death of his father.

Bobrowski, Tadeusz (1829– 94), Conrad’s maternal uncle, benefac- tor and unofficial guardian from 1869, had read law at St Petersburg University before becoming head of the Bobrowski family in 1859. His memoir (published in 1900, extracted in CUFE) tends to confirm Conrad’s later impression of his uncle as ‘a man of powerful intel- ligence and great force of character’ (CL, II, 246). Bobrowski regarded himself as continuing the enlightened liberal traditions of his family and prided himself on his clear- headed and pragmatic prudence, in contrast to what he saw as the foolishly impulsive patriotic ideal- ism of the Korzeniowskis. As Conrad’s guardian, Bobrowski gave his nephew permission to leave Poland for Marseilles in 1874, oversee- ing his career and finances for the next 15 years. Conrad’s letters to his uncle were destroyed during the 1917 Revolution. Bobrowski’s numerous letters, together with the ‘Document’ he compiled on Conrad’s early life and background (CPB, pp. 183– 202), show the seriousness with which he took his guardianship and invariably find him pressing the gospel of work and stabilizing commitment upon a young man in whom he detected strains of ‘Korzeniowski’ impulsiveness; in 1878, his concern at hearing that his nephew had attempted suicide brought him promptly to Marseilles in order to sort out the young man’s personal and financial problems. A year after Bobrowski’s death, Conrad dedicated his first novel, Almayer’s Folly, to his uncle ‘to whom I stand more in the relation of a son than of a nephew’ (CL, II, 246). Bobrowski’s A Memoir of My Life (1900) has been translated in its entirety into English by Addison Bross (Lublin, 2008).

Bone, David (William) ( 1874–1959; knighted 1946), one of three talented brothers of a Clydeside family, was a seaman- author who first contacted Conrad in 1910 about his recently published novel The Brassbounder. In 1923 Bone, then a senior commander with the Anchor Line, captained the Tuscania, in which Conrad sailed to America, a voyage remembered in Bone’s Landfall at Sunset: The Life of a Contented Sailor (1955). His brother Muirhead (1876– 1953; knighted 1937), a talented artist, also made the trip, undertook sketches of the writer, and later became a friend of the Conrads; his 188 A Conrad Chronology second brother James (1872– 1962), London editor of the Manchester Guardian, was also acquainted with Conrad.

Capes, Harriet Mary ( 1849– 1936), writer of uplifting literature for children and sister of the novelist Bernard Capes, was a lifelong friend of the Conrads from 1895 and later compiled Wisdom and Beauty from Conrad: An Anthology (1915). Conrad dedicated A Set of Six to her.

Casement, Roger (David) ( 1864– 1916; knighted 1911) was working for the Compagnie du Chemin de fer du Congo as a supervisor of the railway under construction in the Congo Free State when he first met Conrad in 1890. In 1898, Casement became British Consul for the country and in 1903 prepared a widely publicized government report on atrocities committed by Belgian colonists. Working in Britain with E. D. Morel, he helped found the Congo Reform Association and, in 1903, tried (unsuccessfully) to persuade Conrad to become a member. After a distinguished diplomatic career, Casement’s involve- ment with the Irish National Volunteers and collusion with Germany during the War led to his arrest and execution for treason in 1916. In May of that year, Conrad described him as a ‘truly tragic personality’ (CL, V, 598), though he declined to add his name to an appeal for clemency organized by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Chesson, W(ilfrid) H(ugh) (1870– 1952), novelist, reviewer and editor, was, with Edward Garnett, a reader for the T. Fisher Unwin firm. He was probably the first professional reader to see the manuscript of Conrad’s maiden novel Almayer’s Folly and spot its promise; he later commented that ‘the purely stylistic and academic merits of Mr. Conrad’s work were even in 1894 too obvious to make the “discovery” of him by a literary critic much more than an evidence of reasonable attention to his business’ (‘Letters to the Editor. The Discovery of Joseph Conrad’, To- day, June 1919, 152).

Clifford, Hugh (Charles) ( 1866– 1941; knighted 1909) combined a distinguished career as a colonial administrator and governor (in Malaya, North Borneo, Trinidad and Tobago, West Africa and Ceylon) with that of man- of- letters. Conrad’s review of Clifford’s Studies in Brown Humanity (1898) led to a meeting in 1899, at a time Select Who’s Who 189 when both were fellow contributors to Blackwood’s. Thereafter they corresponded, exchanged volumes and discussed each other’s work. An early admirer of Conrad, Clifford wrote one of the first general appreciations of the former’s work. He continued to champion his friend’s reputation, though his assertion (in a North American Review article of 1904) that Conrad had at the beginning of his writing career wavered between English and French always irritated the writer. Conrad dedicated Chance to Clifford in acknowledgement of his help in securing an invitation to contribute a serial to the New York Herald (where Chance first appeared).

Colvin, Sidney ( 1845– 1927; knighted 1911), a historian and cul- tured critic of the fine arts and literature, was a friend and admirer of both Conrad (whose interests he promoted) and R. L. Stevenson (whose letters and works he edited). After a period as Slade Professor of Fine Arts at Cambridge, he became Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum and an influential patron of the arts. He and his wife Frances ( 1842– 1924) maintained regular social contacts with the Conrads from 1905 onwards. See also E. V. Lucas, The Colvins and their Friends (1928).

Conrad, Jessie Emmeline, née George ( 1873– 1936), Conrad’s wife, was one of nine children in a South London working- class family which in 1892 had been left in straitened circumstances by the death of the father, a publisher’s warehousemen. According to Conrad, he and Jessie (16 years his junior) first met in late 1894, introduced by Hope, when she worked in the City for the American Writing Machines Company, a manufacturer of typewriters, and lived with her mother in Peckham. After a sudden proposal by Conrad, they were married on 24 March 1896 at Hanover Square Registry Office. In a letter of that time, Conrad described his prospective bride as ‘a person rather in humble life – not pretty but very intelligent and with great qualities of heart’ (CL, IX, 23). Throughout their married life, Jessie took her duties as a writer’s wife very seriously, acting as Conrad’s typist in their early years, evidently keeping a close eye on his finished manuscripts, and being generally content to act as devoted home- maker and cook to her ‘boy’, whose volatile moods and excitability seem often to have prompted her to take on the role of protective mother. 190 A Conrad Chronology

Later impressions of Jessie by Conrad’s friends (and biographers) often present an unflattering picture of her habitual stolidity and impassivity, though Borys has suggested that her ‘rigid self- control’ and imperviousness to her husband’s volatile moods made her ‘the ideal wife’ for his hypersensitive father (MFJC, p. 12). Conrad dedicated the Youth volume and Romance (with Elsie Hueffer) to her. A dislocated knee during childhood left Jessie prone to severe leg trouble, and, after a fall in 1904, she was virtually permanently disabled and, in later life, needed constant surgery. She ventured into print with A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House (completed 1907, with a foreword by her husband; published 1923) and, after Conrad’s death, published two intimate but often unreliable memoirs, Joseph Conrad as I Knew Him (1926) and Joseph Conrad and his Circle (1935). Their two sons extended the collection of family memoirs with My Father: Joseph Conrad (1970) by Borys (1898–1978) and Joseph Conrad: Times Remembered (Cambridge, 1981) by John ( 1906– 82). To the elder of his sons, Conrad dedicated The Shadow- Line and The Inheritors (with Christina Hueffer). See J. H. Stape, ‘Jessie Conrad in Context: A George Family History’, The Conradian, 34.1 (2009), 84– 110; and David Miller, ‘The Unenchanted Garden: Children, Childhood, and Conrad’, The Conradian, 31.2 (2006), 28– 47.

Crane, Stephen ( 1871–1900), the young American writer and journalist, was introduced to Conrad by Pawling in October 1897 some months after Crane and his partner Cora ( 1865– 1910) had arrived in England. Before their meeting, Conrad had already read The Red Badge of Courage (1895) and admired its experimental ‘impressionist’ methods, while Crane was an early admirer of The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’, which he read in proof. Soon close friends, the two men were sufficiently confident of their friendship to con- template a collaboration (on a play to be called ‘The Predecessor’), though the project did not materialize. Their regular contacts were interrupted in 1898 by Crane’s departure for Cuba to cover the Spanish– American War as a correspondent and cut short by his early death in 1900. Conrad later wrote three appreciations of Crane and his work, one collected in Notes on Life and Letters and two in Last Essays. See Elsa Nettels, ‘Conrad and Stephen Crane’, Conradiana, 10 (1978), 267– 83. Select Who’s Who 191

Curle, Richard (Henry) (Parnell) ( 1883– 1968), author, editor and journalist, first met the writer in 1912 after having written about him in the Manchester Guardian and Rhythm. Their friendship proved to be lasting, with Curle filling the gap left by Ford. He became a regular visitor to Conrad’s homes and fulfilled the functions of a devoted Boswell. While making use of Curle’s links with the press and bask- ing in the younger man’s adulatory respect, Conrad also enjoyed his company and valued the sound practical sense of the friend to whom he dedicated The Arrow of Gold; he also wrote a preface to Curle’s Into the East: Notes on Burma and Malaya (1923). Curle was present at Oswalds in August 1924 when the writer died. In between his duties as a newspaper editor and journalist (both at home with the Daily Mail and abroad with the Rangoon Times), Curle wrote extensively about Conrad. His Joseph Conrad: A Study (1914), undertaken with the author’s approval and advice, was the first full- length book on his fiction. This was followed after the writer’s death by The Last Twelve Years of Joseph Conrad (1928), Joseph Conrad and his Characters (1957) and numerous articles; as co- executor of Conrad’s will, he also administered the writer’s posthumous papers, editing Suspense (1925), Tales of Hearsay (1925), Last Essays (1926) and a vol- ume of Conrad’s letters to him (1928).

Dawson, Alec John (1872– 1951) and his brother Ernest (1884– 1960) lived in Rye (Sussex) and, having been introduced to the Conrads by Wells, became ‘very real friends of the family’ (JCTR, p. 76). Alec, a traveller and novelist, had spent several years in India, Africa, Australia and the East. Ernest, in connection with his army duties, had served in Burma and contributed travel reminiscences and stories to Blackwood’s Magazine. See also Ernest Dawson, ‘Some Recollections of Joseph Conrad’, Fortnightly Review, 130 (1 August 1928), 203– 12.

Dawson, Francis Warrington ( 1878–1962), the son of a wealthy newspaper- owner from Charleston, South Carolina, was a successful international journalist and aspiring novelist when he arranged an introduction to Conrad in May 1910. Then recovering from a break- down, Conrad responded to the polished charm and flattery of his young American admirer, who lived in France and much enjoyed the company of the celebrated. Conrad subsequently read Dawson’s manuscripts, also helping to revise and promote his work, though he 192 A Conrad Chronology sternly resisted his invitation to join the Fresh Air Art Society. Their friendship was at its closest during 1913– 14, after which Dawson became an invalid and was unable to leave his home in Versailles. See Dale B. J. Randall, Joseph Conrad and Warrington Dawson: The Record of a Friendship (Durham, NC, 1968).

Dent, J(oseph) M(allaby) ( 1849– 1926) was Conrad’s main publisher from 1911, when he brought out ’Twixt Land and Sea (1911). Founded in 1888, the J. M. Dent publishing house evolved in 1909 into J. M. Dent and Sons, a family business that included Dent’s eldest son Hugh Railton ( 1874– 1938). Dent helped to guide Conrad’s fiction into a new age of industrial publishing, bringing out his works in the firm’s various popular ‘libraries’ and issuing second editions of three of his best known volumes in 1917– 18. His firm went on to publish a collected edition of Conrad’s works in the form of Dent’s Uniform Edition (1923– 8) and, after the writer’s death, Dent’s Collected Edition ( 1946–55), a reissue of the earlier publication.

Doubleday, F(rank) N(elson) (1862– 1934), American publisher whose initials formed the basis of his nickname ‘Effendi’, was responsible for the first American edition of Lord Jim (in partner- ship with S. S. McClure) and, with Heinemann, helped to subsidize Conrad during his early trials with The Rescue. In 1913, as president of Doubleday, Page, he took over as the writer’s main American pub- lisher and, from the publication of Chance (1914) onwards, played a major role in shaping his American reputation. Intent upon bringing out Conrad’s works on a commercially successful basis in America, he mounted elaborate and aggressive publicity campaigns, acquired rights to Conrad’s novels for a collected edition and masterminded the writer’s visit to America in 1923, when he stayed at Doubleday’s Long Island home. For a study of Doubleday’s role in the formation and growth of Conrad’s reputation in America, see Peter Lancelot Mallios, Our Conrad: Constituting American (Stanford, CA, 2010).

Douglas, (George) Norman ( 1868–1952), polymath, traveller, epi- curean and author of South Wind (1917), was of Scots descent but the product of a cosmopolitan culture – brought up in Austria and Germany, widely travelled in the diplomatic service and later resident Select Who’s Who 193 in Capri. He met Conrad on the island in 1905 when Douglas had only published anonymously. Conrad went on to recommend his writings to British publishers and establish a contact for him with the English Review, of which he became assistant editor (1912– 15). The Conrads’ services also included giving a home to Douglas’s son Robert (‘Robin’) and providing him with a ‘mother’ (Jessie Conrad) during school vacations. In 1915 Douglas’s increasingly unhampered sexual adventurism and subsequent arrest for indecent assault on a boy made it necessary for him to skip bail and flee the country. See Mark Holloway, Norman Douglas: A Biography (1976), and J. H. Stape, ‘“Intimate Friends”: Norman Douglas and Joseph Conrad’, The Conradian, 34.1 (2009), 144– 62.

Epstein, Jacob ( 1880–1959; knighted 1954), sculptor, undertook his famous bust of Conrad (now at the National Portrait Gallery, London) in the last year of the writer’s life. Epstein’s recollection of their conversations in March 1924 can be found in Let There Be Sculpture: An Autobiography (1940).

Ford, Ford Madox ( 1873– 1939), of Anglo- German parentage and brought up in pre- Raphaelite circles, changed his surname from ‘Hueffer’ in 1919. An important novelist and critic in his own right, Ford had published little when, aged 24, he first met Conrad in 1898. Soon after, the two committed themselves to a working col- laboration that yielded The Inheritors (1901) Romance (1903) and The Nature of a Crime (written 1906), none of these bringing the recog- nition and financial reward anticipated by the two writers. During their 10- year friendship, significantly coinciding with Conrad’s major period as a writer, ‘there was, beneath Conrad’s fierce pride, a real dependence on Ford. It was never a dependence for a knowl- edge of his craft or for imaginative insight ... It was psychological support – assurance that these gifts were really his – that Conrad needed’ (Arthur Mizener, The Saddest Story: A Biography of Ford Madox Ford [1971], p. 46). In addition, there is no reason to doubt Ford’s claim that at the height of their friendship he was heavily involved in Conrad’s ‘literary dustings and sweepings, correcting his proofs, writing from dictation, suggesting words when he was at a loss, or bringing to his memory incidents that he had forgotten’ (Thus to Revisit [1921], p. 191). 194 A Conrad Chronology

Their friendship foundered in 1909, partly through Conrad’s disapproval of the distress to his friends caused by Ford’s chaotic private life and his separation from his wife, but also through his inability to manage the English Review, which he had founded and edited. Ford’s best- known novel The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion appeared in 1915. After the First World War, in which he was gassed, Ford lived more or less permanently in France, and his works of this time include the Parade’s End tetralogy ( 1924– 28). Later, Ford wrote repeatedly and at length – but most memorably in Joseph Conrad: A Personal Remembrance (1924) – on his collaboration with Conrad, their shared love of French literary traditions and plans for the ‘new novel’. See Douglas Goldring, The Last Pre- Raphaelite: A Record of the Life and Writings of Ford Madox Ford (1948), and Max Saunders, Ford Madox Ford: A Dual Life, 2 vols (Oxford, 1996).

Galsworthy, John (1867– 1933), novelist and dramatist, was in his mid- twenties and trained for the legal profession when he first met Conrad, then a seaman, in the Torrens in 1893. He and his friend E. L. (‘Ted’) Sanderson had been in Australia and the Far East in quest of the writer R. L. Stevenson: they missed Stevenson, but found a lifelong friend in Conrad. As the senior man and the first into print, the latter played an important part in getting Galsworthy’s fiction noticed when he began writing under the pseudonym ‘John Sinjohn’. He also read many of Galsworthy’s manuscripts and advised, probed and debated with a writer fundamentally different from himself. The decent Galsworthy reciprocated with constant friendship and support, financial help, hospitality at his London homes, and even proof- reading for his friend. In 1904, Conrad dedicated Nostromo to Galsworthy, wrote a review of the latter’s The Island Pharisees and a preface to Ada Galsworthy’s translation of Maupassant. A review of The Man of Property followed in 1906. By that year, Galsworthy had made the transition from amateur to professional writer and found his own direction with The Forsyte Saga ( 1906– 21). Though he went on to gain a public recognition denied to Conrad (he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932), his star began to wane from the 1930s onwards. After Conrad’s death in 1924, he wrote one of the most sensitive memorial tributes, ‘Reminiscences of Conrad: 1924’, collected in his Castles in Spain & Other Screeds (1927). See also H. V. Marrot, The Life and Letters of John Galsworthy (1935) and Select Who’s Who 195

James Gindin, John Galsworthy’s Life and Art: An Alien’s Fortress (Basingstoke, 1987).

Garnett, Edward (William) ( 1868– 1937), critic, dramatist, pub- lisher’s reader and nurturer of literary talent, was a key influence in the making of Conrad’s early career after their first meeting in 1894 (when, as a reader for T. Fisher Unwin, he recommended Almayer’s Folly for publication). From then until about 1900, the priceless Garnett was always at hand as sympathetic friend, ‘creative’ reader of Conrad’s early manuscripts and regular reviewer of his fiction. He also provided the isolated apprentice writer with numer- ous contacts – notably, to a social and cultural elite with some bohemian fringes and to inestimable professional contacts. Little wonder that Conrad chose to dedicate The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’, an important landmark in his career, to his ‘Father in Letters’ (CL, I, 307). Although they grew apart in later life, possibly because of Garnett’s keen Russophilism, Conrad always acknowledged his debt to the age’s most complete bookman: ‘Straight from the sea into your arms, as it were. How much you have done to pull me together intellectu- ally only the Gods that brought us together know. ... I am proud after all these years to have understood You from the first’ (CL, VIII, 167). George Jefferson’s Edward Garnett: A Life in Literature (1982) gives a detailed picture of Garnett as discoverer of talent, shrewd publisher’s reader and book- surgeon; it also contains a chapter on the Garnetts’ home at the Cearne and on the Mont Blanc literary circle which he founded (and with which Conrad maintained an intermittent connection). Garnett’s father, Richard (1835– 1906), was Assistant Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum. His wife Constance ( 1862– 1946) was a noted translator of Russian writers, especially Turgenev, Dostoevsky and Chekhov, whose translations Conrad read from the late 1890s onwards. Their son David ( 1892– 1981) became a novelist linked to the and recalled the Conrad– Garnett era in Memoirs: The Golden Echo (1953) and Great Friends: Portraits of Seventeen Writers (1979). Edward Garnett’s elder brother Robert (Singleton) ( 1866– 1932) was a senior partner in the law firm of Darley, Cumberland and looked after Conrad’s literary and financial interests during his illness of 1910– 11. 196 A Conrad Chronology

Gibbon, (Reginald) Perceval ( 1879– 1926), or ‘Uncle Reggie’ as he was affectionately known to the young Conrads, was educated in Germany and worked as a merchant seaman in British, French and American ships before becoming a journalist, Blackwood’s author and novelist. From 1908 onwards Gibbon, his wife Maisie ( 1883– 1964) and two daughters were good personal friends of the Conrads, both families spending several holidays together. The relationship between the two men was especially close during the composition of Under Western Eyes and its aftermath (1908– 11), when Gibbon pro- vided continual moral and practical support. In 1911, the latter dedi- cated both Margaret Harding and Flower o’ the Peach to the Conrads; in 1914, Conrad reciprocated by dedicating Victory to the Gibbons. During the War, Gibbon travelled widely as a foreign correspondent, keeping the Conrads in touch with Borys’s movements at the Front. In later years, after his marriage had failed, he lived in Guernsey, where he died and where Conrad’s presumably many letters to him were destroyed in a bombing- raid.

Gide, André (- Paul- Guillaume) ( 1869– 1951), distinguished French novelist of the interwar years and Nobel Prize laureate in 1947, was introduced to Conrad by Agnes Tobin in July 1911. Already an admirer of his work and Lord Jim in particular, Gide went on to champion him in the Nouvelle revue française circle, supervise a translation of Conrad’s writings into French, and translate ‘Typhoon’ himself. Though the two rarely met, they continued to read each other’s work and corresponded fairly regularly. After Conrad’s death, Gide’s editorial work and other commitments prevented him from writing a planned study of Conrad, and he managed only a sensitive appreciation in the collection of obituary tributes in the Nouvelle revue française issue of December 1924. Gide later dedicated Voyage au Congo (1927) to Conrad’s memory. See Russell West, Conrad and Gide: Translation, Transference and Intertextuality (Amsterdam, 1996).

Gosse, Edmund (William) ( 1849– 1928; knighted 1925), Librarian of the House of Lords, literary historian, biographer and author of the semi- autobiographical Father and Son (1907), exercised a powerful influence upon the turn- of- the- century literary world. He played an indirect part in shaping Conrad’s career, being one of the first read- ers of the Almayer’s Folly manuscript and, in 1902 and 1904, helping Select Who’s Who 197 to secure grants for the writer. A loyal supporter and admirer of Conrad’s work, Gosse was a moving force in securing a Civil List pen- sion for him in 1910. In 1916, he purchased a William Rothenstein portrait of the writer that he later presented to the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Graham, R(obert) B(ontine) Cunninghame ( 1852– 1936), traveller, writer, pioneer socialist and Scots nationalist, enjoyed a period of ranching and adventuring in South America before succeeding to the family estate in 1883. As a Liberal MP ( 1886– 92), the flamboy- ant ‘Don Roberto’ was a charismatic public figure, imprisoned after ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Trafalgar Square (1887), a devotee of William Morris, and often affectionately caricatured, as in Shaw’s Arms and the Man (1894). Having written to praise ‘An Outpost of Progress’ in 1897, the larger- than- life Graham was instantly attractive to Conrad when they first met and began a lifelong friendship. Their correspondence between 1897 and 1903 – discussing each other’s work, contemporary political events, the history of impe- rialism, and their own differences of outlook – prompted some of Conrad’s richest and most revealing letters. It shows two secure friends testing to the limit their own and each other’s opinions, arguing from opposing philosophic corners, but also being surprised into recognizing fundamental similarities between themselves – according to Cedric Watts, acknowledging that each was a blend of Don Quixote and Hamlet. These letters, as well as Graham’s own South American writings, were part of the rich matrix out of which Nostromo grew. For further details on the relationship between a product of the Polish szlachta and the son of the Scots landed aristocracy, see Cedric Watts’s fine introduction to Joseph Conrad’s Letters to Cunninghame Graham (Cambridge, 1969), and Cedric Watts and Laurence Davies, Cunninghame Graham: A Critical Biography (Cambridge, 1979). Graham’s wife Gabriela (originally Caroline Horsfall) died in 1906. Elizabeth (‘Toppie’) Dummett ( 1868– 1940), widowed in 1891, was Graham’s close companion for over 20 years and by his side when he died in .

Hallowes, Lilian (Mary) (1870– 1950), Conrad’s secretary and typist, was born in Penrith in the Lake District. She first worked for Conrad on a temporary basis in 1904, and returned for periods in 1908 and 1911. 198 A Conrad Chronology

From 1917 onwards, she was virtually a member of the Conrad family and ‘used to declare that proofs would be found imprinted on her heart when she died’ (JCC, p. 228). See also David Miller, ‘Amanuensis: A Biographical Sketch of Lilian Mary Hallowes, “Mr Conrad’s Secretary’’’, The Conradian, 31.1 (2006), 86– 103.

Hastings, B(asil) Macdonald (1881– 1928), a minor essayist and dramatist, entered Conrad’s sphere in 1916 with a plan to adapt Victory for the stage. During the next three years, until the play was performed in 1919, Conrad oversaw the developing scenario, enjoyed being involved in casting, attended rehearsals, and thought of col- laborating on an original play with Hastings. The latter served in the Royal Flying Corps during the War and edited one of its journals, The Fledgling, in which Conrad’s essay ‘Flight’ appeared. His reminiscences in Ladies Half- Way (1927) give further details of their association and throw light on Conrad’s habitual attitudes to the theatre and actors.

Heinemann, William (Henry) ( 1863– 1920) founded his publish- ing house in 1890 and by the turn of the century had compiled a remarkable fiction- list that included Stevenson, Kipling, Wells and Conrad’s The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’. From 1895 to 1897, the firm also published the New Review, whose editor, W. E. Henley accepted The Nigger for serialization. In this period, Heinemann also helped to subsidize Conrad during his trials with The Rescue and went on to publish The Inheritors and the Typhoon volume of stories. In 1921, the Heinemann company, in which Doubleday had taken over a major- ity share on the owner’s death, co- published with Doubleday, Page the first collected edition of Conrad’s works.

Henley, W(illiam) E(rnest) ( 1849– 1903), poet and critic, was also an influential editor and patron whose decision to publish the serial ver- sion of The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’ in the New Review (1897) marked a breakthrough in Conrad’s early career. Surprisingly the two men seem never to have met, although Conrad corresponded with Henley on the subject of his collaboration with Ford, considered dedicating YOS to him, and associated himself with the Henley memorial in 1904.

Hope, G(eorge) F(ountaine) W(eare) ( 1854– 1930), a lifelong non- literary friend from Conrad’s early London days of 1880, was an Select Who’s Who 199

ex- Conway boy and had served briefly in the Duke of Sutherland before taking up a business career. As a director of several companies and owner of a leisure craft, the Nellie (in which Conrad enjoyed out- ings in 1891), Hope appears to be remembered in the frame- story of ‘Heart of Darkness’. After their honeymoon in 1896, the Conrads settled in Stanford- le-Hope, Essex, as close neighbours of the Hopes, the two men continuing their tradition of boat- trips. Though the Conrads moved from Stanford, they never lost contact with the Hopes, to whom Lord Jim is dedicated. Hope’s reminiscences as an early English ‘Friend of Conrad’ are included in Conrad Between the Lines: Documents in a Life, ed. Gene M. Moore, Allan H. Simmons and J. H. Stape (Amsterdam, 2000), pp. 1– 56.

Hudson, W(illiam) H(enry) ( 1841– 1922), writer and naturalist, born in Argentina of American parents, came to England in 1874 and wrote a number of South American romances and essays on rural England. After their first meeting in March 1899, he and Conrad met periodically – mainly in Garnett and Mont Blanc circles – and perhaps shared a feeling of being at the periphery of the literary establishment. Conrad read and reread Hudson’s work, remaining a permanent admirer of his style. He wrote a review of Green Mansions (1904) in the year of its publication and later commented on the man and his work that ‘there was nothing more real in letters – nothing less tainted with the conventions of art’ (CL, VII, 513).

Hueffer, Elsie ( 1877– 1949), who married Ford Madox Ford against her parents’ wishes in 1894, was estranged from her husband in 1909. She published several novels and a translation of Maupassant’s stories (1903), with which Conrad helped her.

James, Henry ( 1843– 1916) was at the height of career as a novelist when Conrad sent him an inscribed copy of An Outcast of the Islands in 1896. James soon reciprocated with a copy of The Spoils of Poynton (1897), and the two first met at the Reform Club in February 1897. The awkwardly constrained formality of their correspondence (much of it in French, with James addressed as ‘Cher Maître’) seems to have extended into the personal relation between the two individuals, who, though close neighbours, were uneasily aware of their inhibit- ing cultural and temperamental differences. Their personal contact 200 A Conrad Chronology and mutual regard reached its height at the turn of the century, when Ford brought Conrad closer to James’s home at Lamb House in Rye. The latter followed Conrad’s career closely and, in 1902, supported the move to secure a Royal Literary Fund award for him; Conrad’s early letters to friends show him passionately championing James as the greatest living novelist in English, and his essay ‘Henry James: An Appreciation’ (1904) celebrates him publicly as ‘the historian of fine consciences’ (NLL, p. 17). More marked divergences of opinion between the two writers arose in their later careers. Conrad entertained serious doubts about James’s last novels (whose falling off he attributed to the practice of dictation), while James’s reservations about Chance surface in two Times Literary Supplement articles on ‘The Younger Generation’ ( March– April, 1914), an occasion that Conrad described as ‘the only time a criticism affected me painfully’ (to Quinn, 24 May 1916). For a comparative view of the two writers, see Elsa Nettels, James and Conrad (Athens, GA, 1977).

Jean- Aubry, G(érard) (1882– 1950), the pen-name of Jean- Frédéric- Émile Aubry, French man- of- letters and music critic, to whom The Rover is dedicated, was probably introduced to Conrad by Retinger during the First World War. With Curle, he became an ardent admirer and a regu- lar part of Conrad’s circle of friends. After the novelist’s death, he cham- pioned his reputation in France, becoming a prolific (if not particularly subtle) translator as well as critic and editor of his work. Conrad’s first biographer in the two- volume Joseph Conrad: Life and Letters (1927), he also wrote Joseph Conrad in the Congo (1925; translated 1926) and The Sea Dreamer: A Definitive Biography of Joseph Conrad (1957).

Jones, Robert (1857– 1933; knighted 1917), a leading orthopædic sur- geon of his day and the author of many pioneering books in his field, became Jessie’s surgeon from late 1917 onwards, performing several difficult operations on her leg. Exactly the same age as Conrad, he also became a family friend, although he confessed privately to find- ing the novels of his friend Conrad difficult to follow after a long day’s work. See Frederick Watson, The Life of Sir Robert Jones (1934).

Korzeniowski, Apollo ( 1820– 69) and Ewa, née Bobrowska ( 1832–65), Conrad’s parents, were married on 8 May 1856 after a protracted Select Who’s Who 201 courtship and in the face of strong opposition from the Bobrowskis who regarded Apollo as improvident and quixotic. Though both Apollo and Ewa belonged to the szlachta or land- owning gentry, their families did not share the same political outlook: the intensely ardent and patriotic Korzeniowskis, passionately committed to the cause of Polish independence, had been involved in two insurrections against the Russians and had had their estates confiscated, while the Bobrowskis, though patriotic, espoused more conciliatory politics. Born in the Ukraine and educated at St Petersburg University, Apollo was at the time of his marriage already becoming known as a translator of English and French classics and as author of two satiric plays, Comedy (1855) and For the Love of Money (1859). His subsequent writings – ranging from bitter anti- Russian polemic to the poetry of Romantic and messianic commitment – increasingly became the vehicle for a spontaneous overflow of powerful patriotism and linked with the cause of an insurgent ‘young’ Poland throwing off the yoke of her oppressors. Apollo’s move to Warsaw in 1861, where he helped to establish the underground Committee of the Movement, marks the culmination of his revolutionary activities. Later that year he was arrested, imprisoned in the Warsaw Citadel and, with his wife, was sentenced to exile. With their four- year- old son, they were escorted to Vologda, 300 miles north- east of Moscow, and later transferred to Chernigov, near Kiev. Always fragile in health, Ewa died of tubercu- losis in April 1865, leaving father and son in lonely exile. In early 1868 Apollo and his son were permitted to move to Lemberg (then under Austrian rule) and later to Cracow, where Apollo died in May 1869. His funeral became a large patriotic demonstration, with the 11- year- old Conrad walking at the head of the procession. For contrasting views of Apollo at various stages of his life, the opposition between ‘Korzeniowski’ and ‘Bobrowski’ values and their effect upon Conrad, see the introduction and contents of CUFE, Keith Carabine’s review of that volume in Conradiana, 18 (1986), 48– 59, and Czesław Miłosz, ‘Apollo N. Korzeniowski: Joseph Conrad’s Father’, Mosaic, 6 (1973), 121– 40. CUFE also contains letters from Ewa to Apollo as well as the latter’s christening poem to his son and his polemic ‘Poland and Muscovy’.

Krieger, Adolf Philip ( 1851–1918), an American of German origin working in Britain as a shipping- agent, first met Conrad when they 202 A Conrad Chronology were fellow lodgers at Dynevor Road, Stoke Newington in the early 1880s, the starting- point of a staunch 15- year friendship. As an agent for Barr, Moering and Co., Krieger later found work for Conrad in the company’s warehouse and put him in touch with prospective employers; he also acted as intermediary for the allowance paid by Bobrowski to his nephew and lent Conrad a substantial amount of his own money. These unpaid debts left the writer under obligation to Krieger for several years and appear to have caused their estrange- ment in 1897. The dedication to him of Tales of Unrest ‘for the sake of old days’ was probably intended to placate Krieger, who may have provided a model for Verloc in The Secret Agent.

Marris, Carl M(urrell) ( 1875– 1910), born in Aston (Birmingham), had been a sea- captain active in the Malay Archipelago before mar- rying a Malay princess and settling in Penang. His visit to Conrad’s home in September 1909 rekindled the writer’s memories of the East and prompted his return to Eastern material in ’Twixt Land and Sea – Tales, which is dedicated to Marris ‘in memory of those old days of adventure’.

Marwood, Arthur Pierson ( 1868– 1916), younger son of a Yorkshire baronet, emerged from and Cambridge University as a talented mathematician. Poor in health, he was never fitted for a career and lived the quiet life of a gentleman farmer in Kent. Through Ford, who revered him as a living embodiment of the enlightened Tory gentry, he met Conrad in 1906 and was later involved with the English Review before quarrelling with Ford in 1909. According to the latter, Marwood was ‘a man of infinite benevolence, comprehensions and knowledges’ (It Was the Nightingale [1934], p. 214). During the period 1908– 16, he was one of Conrad’s closest friends, with whom the novelist could regularly discuss his work and sound out his ideas. With his unliterary approach to literary problems, Marwood was a refreshing asset to Conrad and Ford. He also provided a model for Ford’s Tietjens in Parade’s End (1924– 28).

Meldrum, David (Storrar) ( 1864– 1940), literary editor at Blackwood’s London office, was sympathetically and professionally involved in Conrad’s early career (1897– 1902) when he oversaw the publication of ‘Karain’, the Youth volume of stories and Lord Jim. The patient Select Who’s Who 203 and long- suffering Meldrum mediated between Conrad and William Blackwood, responded sympathetically to the writer’s financial prob- lems and valued Conrad’s opinion of his own literary efforts in The Conquest of Charlotte (1902). One of a select group of early readers to appreciate Conrad’s stature as a writer, Meldrum considered the publication of the Youth stories to be a momentous event for the Blackwood house. He became a partner in the firm in 1903 and retired in 1910.

Morrell, Lady Ottoline (Violet Anne) (née Cavendish- Betinck, 1873– 1938), half- sister of the sixth Duke of Portland, was the patroness of a celebrated literary and artistic circle at Garsington Manor, Oxfordshire, and later in London’s Bloomsbury. With an introduction from Henry James, she visited Conrad’s home in August 1913 and responded extravagantly to the ‘wonderful’ literary giant; in the following month, she arranged a meeting between the writer and Bertrand Russell, whose hero- worship of the novelist she helped to fire. For her impressions, see Ottoline: The Early Memoirs of Lady Ottoline Morrell (1963).

Newbolt, Henry (John) ( 1862– 1938; knighted 1915), former barris- ter, later became a naval historian and the author of rousing nautical and patriotic ballads. He served as one of two trustees appointed to administer the Royal Bounty Fund grant awarded to Conrad in 1905, an episode remembered in his memoir My World as in My Time (1932).

Noble, Edward ( 1857– 1941), an ex- seaman friend with literary ambitions, looked to Conrad for help and advice in 1895. Before passing over Noble’s manuscripts to Edward Garnett, Conrad com- mented upon them in letters that also contain the earliest expression of his already demanding artistic creed, with its emphasis upon the importance of the ‘poetic faculty’ and le mot juste. Noble’s Shadows from the Thames (1900), a short- story collection, was the first of his numerous works of fiction.

Northcliffe, first Viscount, né Alfred Charles William Harmsworth ( 1865– 1922), newspaper magnate, revolutionized popular journalism in founding the Daily Mail (1896) and the Daily Mirror (1903). In 204 A Conrad Chronology

1908 he added the Times to his vast empire. Conrad’s friendship with the ‘Napoleon of Fleet Street’ developed during the First World War when they both enjoyed the company of Jane Anderson. The writer contributed articles to the Daily Mail and was the object of Northcliffe’s patronage and largesse.

Pawling, S(ydney) S(outhgate) ( 1862– 1922), partner of Heinemann, joined the firm in 1893 and four years later negotiated with Conrad to publish The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’ and The Rescue. A lifelong friend and admirer, the trusty Pawling could be relied on for sup- port, professional advice and active championing of Conrad’s work (as well as the occasional loan). Conrad’s early connection with him also temporarily freed the writer from the wearisome business of sell- ing his fiction in the literary market- place; just before his death in 1922, Pawling oversaw the publication of the Heinemann Collected Edition of Conrad’s works.

Penfield, Frederic Courtland ( 1855–1922), the American ambas- sador in Vienna during the First World War, was also responsible for handling the diplomatic interests of Britain, France, Japan and Italy in Austria– Hungary. Acting as intermediary for the Conrads when war was declared during their 1914 visit to Poland, he helped to secure their release permits. Conrad gratefully dedicated The Rescue to him.

Pinker, Eric (Seabrooke) (1891– 1973), J. B. Pinker’s elder son, joined his father’s literary agency on leaving school in 1908 and later served in the First World War. Returning to the agency, he took over the firm’s management after his father’s death in 1922 and became Conrad’s agent for the last two years of his life. Moving to New York in 1926, Eric set up the American branch of the firm, leaving his younger brother Ralph ( 1900– 59) in charge of the London office. The company was liquidated in 1939 when the two brothers were found guilty of malpractice and misappropriation of funds, with each sentenced to a term in prison.

Pinker, J(ames) B(rand) ( 1862– 1922), Conrad’s literary agent, started his Arundel Street agency in London in 1896 and by 1901 acted for Wells, Crane, James, Ford and Conrad. Though much Select Who’s Who 205 maligned by authors of his day, Pinker served the interests of a number of ‘difficult’ writers with a skilful blend of shrewdness, tact, generosity and long- suffering. These qualities were certainly needed in the early stages of his 20- year association with Conrad who, in 1901, was regarded by Pinker (and regarded himself) as an uncertain professional risk. In a relationship where the writer required Pinker to play many parts – friend, generous banker, father- figure, general factotum – tension and mutual exasperation were unavoidable. Underlying many of these tensions was a potential problem created by the new commercial and marketing strategies that Pinker brought into Conrad’s professional life as a writer. The agent’s patience snapped in 1909 at a time when Conrad owed him £2,700 and was labouring to finish Under Western Eyes. A subsequent violent quarrel led to a two- year estrangement. From 1911 onwards, however, their relationship slowly weathered into genuine friendship: the two men met weekly in London, visited each other’s homes, shared family holidays, and even collaborated on a screenplay. After Pinker’s sud- den death during a visit to New York in 1922, which affected Conrad deeply, his literary agency was taken over by his two sons. For a survey of their 1,300 extant letters, see Frederick R. Karl’s essay on ‘Conrad and Pinker’ in Joseph Conrad: A Commemoration, ed. Norman Sherry (1976); see also J. H. Stape, ‘“The Pinker of Agents”: A Family History of James Brand Pinker’, The Conradian, 34.1 (2009), 111– 43.

Poradowska, Marguerite (- Blanche- Marie) ( 1848– 1937), Belgian- born novelist, was the wife of Conrad’s distant cousin Aleksandr ( 1835– 90), who had escaped into exile from Poland after the 1863 insurrection and eventually arrived in Belgium, where he met and married Marguerite. Born of French parents, the handsome and cul- tivated Marguerite was a published author by the late 1880s, with a secure place in the literary circles of Brussels and Paris (where she often lived). Conrad first made contact with the Poradowskis on his way to Poland in February 1890, at a time when Aleksandr was close to death. For the next five years, the friendship between Conrad and the woman and confidante whom he addressed as his ‘aunt’ embraced several meetings and a lengthy correspondence in French (some 110 letters), which, on Conrad’s part, combined a number of strands – the artistic, the distantly romantic and melancholic. How far their relationship had developed by 1895 and whether Conrad 206 A Conrad Chronology had proposed marriage to Marguerite in that year (as some biogra- phers have suggested) remain open questions. Whatever the truth, the relationship was important to Conrad both practically and in directing his thoughts towards authorship and the idea of publica- tion. See Anne Arnold, ‘Marguerite Poradowska as Conrad’s Friend and Adviser’, The Conradian, 34.1 (2009), 68– 83.

Quinn, John ( 1870–1924), a wealthy New York commercial lawyer of Irish descent, patron of the arts and collector, purchased the first of many manuscripts from Conrad in 1911 when the latter was desper- ately short of money. Though they never met, the two corresponded at length over a number of years, with the writer continuing to sell him items until 1918, when he found another willing buyer in T. J. Wise. On his 1923 trip to America, Conrad appears to have avoided meeting Quinn. Later that year the sale of Quinn’s Conradiana took place at a New York auction and yielded enormous profits for the collector. See also B. L. Reid, The Man from New York: John Quinn and his Friends (New York, 1968).

Retinger, J(ózef) H(ieronim) (1888– 1960), a Polish literary scholar active in Parisian artistic and political circles, first met Conrad in late 1912, soon after he had arrived in London to enlist support for the cause of Poland’s independence and proceeded to supervise a Polish Bureau in Arundel Street. The cosmopolitan Retinger and his wife Otolia (1889– 1984) accompanied the Conrads on a holiday to Poland in the summer of 1914, a visit that coincided with the outbreak of the First World War. Later, Retinger helped awaken Conrad’s feeling for the political fate of wartime Poland and worked closely with him on ‘A Note on the Polish Problem’ (1916), prepared for the Foreign Office, where the two men were subsequently interviewed. Conrad’s essay ‘The Crime of Partition’, written in 1918, also owes a debt to Retinger, in this case his La Pologne et l’équilibre européen (Paris, 1916). Friendship with the Retingers faded as their marriage collapsed and when, towards the end of the War, Retinger was expelled from Allied countries as a result of social and political intrigues. He went to live and work in Mexico, before eventually returning to the European political arena. In 1941, he published the evocative but often wayward memoir, Conrad and his Contemporaries: Souvenirs. See also John Pomian, Joseph Retinger: Memoirs of an Eminence Grise (Sussex University, 1972). Select Who’s Who 207

Reynolds, Stephen (1881– 1919), a promising young Edwardian prose writer who lived in Sidmouth and the author of A Poor Man’s House (1908), The Holy Mountain (1910) and Alongshore (1910), first met Conrad and Ford through Garnett in 1907. Briefly connected to the English Review as a sub- editor, he also became one of the circle of young admirers gathered around Conrad between 1907 and 1912 and wrote ‘Joseph Conrad and Sea Fiction’, which is finely respon- sive to the gifts that allowed Conrad to produce ‘novels of the sea, as opposed to novels about the sea’ (Quarterly Review, [1912], 165). See also Christopher Scoble, Fisherman’s Friend: A Life of Stephen Reynolds, 1881– 1919 (Tiverton, Devon, 2000).

Rothenstein, William ( 1872– 1945; knighted 1931), painter, etcher, lithographer and Principal of the Royal College of Art (1920– 35), was born in Bradford (Yorks) and studied art at London’s Slade School and then in Paris, where he made contact with Whistler, Degas and Pissarro. From about 1898, he specialized in portraits of the celebrated, including Conrad, who first sat for him in 1903. Their friendship developed through Rothenstein’s efforts to find subsidies and organize loans for the needy Conrad during his Nostromo period, when he also acted as a co- trustee for a £500 Royal Bounty award secured for the writer. Subsequently Conrad made contact with other artists in the Rothenstein circle and regularly attended the artist’s exhibitions. Rothenstein’s three- volume Men and Memories ( 1931– 39) provides a vivid account of their long friendship.

Russell, Bertrand (Arthur) (William), third Earl (1872– 1970), British philosopher, mathematician and Nobel Prize laureate in 1950, first met Conrad on a visit to Capel House in September 1913 through Lady Ottoline Morrell, then his lover. At that time undergoing a personal crisis, Russell responded with unusual intensity to the ‘wonderful’ writer and the spell of his ‘inward pain & terror’ (MDF, p. 65), send- ing him several of his works; Conrad soon reciprocated with a visit to Cambridge to see the philosopher. Russell’s retrospective (and prob- ably over- coloured) view of a friendship that lasted for a year and then lapsed until 1921 can be found in his Portraits from Memory and other Essays (1956) and Autobiography, 1872– 1914 (1967). An addi- tional reason for their closeness in 1913– 14 was that the philosopher wanted the writer’s opinion of his earliest attempt at creative writing, 208 A Conrad Chronology

The Perplexities of Paul Forstice (published posthumously in 1972). See Owen Knowles, ‘Joseph Conrad and Bertrand Russell: New Light on their Relationship’, Journal of Modern Literature, 17 (1990), 139– 53.

Sandeman, Christopher (‘Kit’) ( 1882– 1951), a member of the well- known family associated with port and sherry marketing, was a jour- nalist, lecturer and author whose friendship with Conrad developed during the First World War. Opera, politics, poetry and history all fascinated him, as did botany, in which connection he led several expeditions during the inter- war period to South America collecting orchids for British herbaria.

Sanderson, E(dward) (‘Ted’) L(ancelot) (1867– 1939) was Galsworthy’s travelling companion in 1893 when the two met Conrad aboard the Torrens (see ‘Galsworthy’ above). Conrad soon visited ‘Ted’ in Elstree, where he was about to teach in the family’s preparatory school. On subsequent visits, the young writer found abundant hospitality, boisterous company with the large family, female friendship, and a cultivated haven where he could finish Almayer’s Folly, encouraged by Ted, his mother Katherine and one of his sisters, Agnes. An Outcast of the Islands was dedicated to Ted and The Mirror of the Sea to his mother. After serving in the Boer War, Sanderson, with his wife Helen (1874– 1967), lived in Africa until 1910, mainly in Nairobi, where he was Town Clerk. On his return to England he became headmaster at Elstree and remained in close touch with the Conrads.

Spiridion, Józef Adolph ( 1849– 1932) was a watchmaker and jew- eller in Cardiff in the business begun by his father Władysław ( 1819– 91), an émigré Pole who had arrived in England in 1837. On Conrad’s first visit to the family in May 1885, he became friendly with Józef and later in the year wrote him letters that offer the first extant example of his written English. In 1896, he took Jessie to spend their first Christmas as a married couple with the Spiridion family in Cardiff. For Władysław’s autobiographical memoir, A Short Account of My Early Life, ed. J. H. Stape, see The Conradian, 34.1 (2009), 1– 37.

Symons, Arthur (William) (1865– 1945), poet and critic, was a lead- ing figure in the British aesthetic movement in the 1890s, when he Select Who’s Who 209 contributed to the Yellow Book and wrote the influential The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899); as editor of the Savoy, he accepted Conrad’s ‘The Idiots’ for publication in 1896. The two men began to correspond in 1908, when the latter sent the draft of an essay on Conrad to the author. As near- neighbours in Kent, the two met occasionally, with Conrad helping to console the depressive Symons. However, given the fragile state of his own nervous constitution in 1909– 10, Conrad’s involvement with Symons was necessarily guarded, and John Conrad remembered that ‘my father rather tended to keep him [Symons] “at arm’s length” and he never became a close friend’ (JCTR, p. 60). See Karl Beckson, Arthur Symons: A Life (1987).

Thomas (Philip) Edward ( 1878– 1917) devoted two decades to journalism, critical writings and hackwork – in which connection he made an early contact with Conrad in 1910 – before turning to poetry with the encouragement of the American poet and Edward Garnett. Close neighbours in Kent, Conrad and Thomas became friendly during the War, but their friendship was cut short by Thomas’s death at the Battle of Arras.

Tittle, Walter Ernest ( 1883–1966), American illustrator and portrait- ist, made several sketches and portraits of Conrad after their first meeting in July 1922 and helped persuade the writer to make his 1923 trip to America, where Tittle met him on arrival in New York. The writer had a special liking for Tittle’s pictures, believing that they brought out ‘the rough old sea- dog’ that he was. In 1948, the artist presented his best- known oil- painting of Conrad to the National Portrait Gallery, London. See Richard P. Veler, ‘Walter Tittle and Joseph Conrad’, Conradiana, 12 (1980), 93– 104.

Tobin, Agnes ( 1864–1939), American poet and translator of Petrarch and Racine, enjoyed meeting celebrated writers and numbered among her friends Alice Meynell, Symons, Gosse, W. B. Yeats, Pound, Gide and – from 1911 onwards – Conrad, who dedicated Under Western Eyes to her. She provided the writer with an introduction to the wealthy American collector of manuscripts, John Quinn.

Unwin, T(homas) Fisher ( 1848– 1935), founder of the publishing firm in 1882, brought out Almayer’s Folly, An Outcast of the Islands 210 A Conrad Chronology and Tales of Unrest at the beginning of Conrad’s career, The Arrow of Gold and The Rover towards the end, and Tales of Hearsay posthu- mously. Although always grateful to Unwin for taking on his first novel and acting as his unofficial literary agent, Conrad came to dis- like his business practices and adherence to the Liberal Party. After a difference with ‘the Patron’ over terms in 1896, the writer transferred to the Heinemann and Blackwood firms.

Walpole, Hugh (Seymour) ( 1884– 1941; knighted 1937) was born in New Zealand and educated in England, where he worked as a schoolmaster before becoming a freelance writer in 1909. A prolific novelist, he soon won popular literary success, mixed in the best literary circles and enjoyed the friendship of James, Bennett, Wells, Virginia Woolf and J. B. Priestley. He is nowadays best remembered for the four historical romances that make up the Rogue Herries series (beginning in 1930). Though Walpole wrote a short study of Conrad in 1916, the two did not meet until 1918, just after Walpole had returned from Russia. From that date, he was a favourite week- end visitor at the Conrads’ Kent homes. Conrad read most of his fiction, especially admiring his two Russian novels, The Dark Forest (1916) and The Secret City (1919) and wrote a preface to A Hugh Walpole Anthology (1921). See Rupert Hart- Davis, Hugh Walpole: A Biography (1952); and Stape, 2009.

Wedgwood, Ralph Lewis ( 1874–1956; knighted 1924), railway administrator, a member of the celebrated family of potters and the brother of Lord Wedgwood the politician, met Conrad in 1913 through Curle. In July 1914, the writer stayed with the Wedgwoods in their Harrogate home while finishing Victory, acknowledging their hospitality in the dedication to Within the Tides. Wedgwood also acted as one of the co- executors of Conrad’s will.

Wells, H(erbert) G(eorge) (1866– 1946) and Conrad first made con- tact in 1896 when Wells, then a rising novelist, reviewed An Outcast of the Islands in the Saturday Review. Conrad was flattered, but bristled privately at some of Wells’s criticisms. From the beginning, therefore, their relationship was uneasy and contained the seeds of potential conflict. The period 1898– 1904 represents the high point of their friendship when, as near- neighbours, they were in close geographical Select Who’s Who 211 and imaginative proximity, their closeness signalled by their mutual echoing of each other’s work. Conrad admired Wells’s scientific romances, delighted in The Invisible Man (1895), and dedicated The Secret Agent to Wells; the latter reciprocated with much practical help and support. Gradually, however, their social and political differences became more marked and Conrad’s criticism of Wells’s utopianism more explicit. At a meeting with Walpole in 1918, Conrad defined their main difference as follows: ‘The difference between us[,] Wells[,] is fundamental. You don’t care for humanity but think they are to be improved. I love humanity but know they are not!’ (Stape 2009, 166). Wells presented thinly- disguised caricatures of Conrad in Tono- Bungay (1909) and Boon (1915), and included his version of their uneasy rela- tions in An Experiment in Autobiography (1934). See also Frederick R. Karl, ‘Conrad, Wells, and the Two Voices’, PMLA. 88 (1973), 1049– 65.

Wise, Thomas J(ames) (1859– 1937), bibliographer, editor and book collector, entered Conrad’s sphere in 1918, when he bought from him the first of several manuscripts (supplanting the writer’s previ- ous buyer John Quinn) and, with Clement K. Shorter, paid for the right to publish Conrad’s miscellaneous writings in limited- edition pamphlets. He compiled A Bibliography of the Writings of Joseph Conrad (1918). Wise’s reputation was irreparably damaged in 1934 by the exposure of his literary forgery.

Zagórski, Karol (1851– 98), Conrad’s second cousin once removed and Marguerite Poradowska’s nephew by marriage, and his wife Aniela had two daughters, Aniela (1881– 1943) and Karola (1885–1955). After the death of his uncle Tadeusz in 1894, Conrad’s only perma- nent link with Poland was through the cultivated Zagórski family. He visited them in Lublin on his return to Poland in 1890, kept in touch with the family after Karol’s death in 1898, and stayed at Aniela’s pen- sion in Zakopane in 1914. Her two daughters maintained contact with Conrad in later years, Aniela as one of the first translators of his work in Poland, and Karola, a professional singer, as a visitor to Capel House and Oswalds. Their reminiscences are reprinted in CUFE. Locations and Addresses

Aldington After leaving Someries and before moving into Capel House, the Conrads spent the period between March 1909 and June 1910 in this Kent village, eight miles from Ashford. They resided in cramped rented rooms above a butcher’s shop, where Conrad’s study consisted of a windowless cubicle. Borys later recalled that ‘the slaughter house and the shed where the bacon was cured were situ- ated at the back of the house ... The squealing of pigs on the weekly “killing” days together with the smell ... from the curing shed must have been very trying for my Father’ (MFJC, p. 60).

Æolian Hall 131– 7 New Bond Street, London W1.

Arundel Street J. B. Pinker’s literary agency was situated here (off The Strand, London WC2) at Talbot House.

Athenæum Club 107 Pall Mall, London SW1.

Brede Place A large 14th- century manor house in Brede (East Sussex), rented by Stephen and Cora Crane in January 1898.

Burys Court J. B. Pinker’s residence at Leigh, near Reigate (Surrey).

Capel House This spacious 17th- century country residence (and now a Grade II listed building) in Orlestone, near Ashford (Kent), was the Conrads’ residence from June 1910 to March 1919. The family home during the whole of the First World War, Capel House

212 Locations and Addresses 213 saw the beginning of the many friendships that sustained Conrad during his later years. Isolated, surrounded by woodland and only eight miles from Pent Farm, the house was immediately ‘sympathetic’ to Conrad (CL, IV, 364). According to Borys Conrad, it was ‘undoubtedly the happiest of the Conrad homes and one in which JC might have ended his days’ had it not been for the fact that the owner ‘wanted the house for his own immediate use and gave us six months’ notice’ (Joseph Conrad’s Homes in Kent, Joseph Conrad Society Pamphlet [1974], p. 4).

Cearne, The Edward and Constance Garnett’s country home in Limpsfield (Surrey), also a well- known centre for Edwardian literary figures and intellectuals.

Curzon Hotel Curzon Street, Mayfair, London W1.

Gatti’s Properly named Gatti’s Adelaide Gallery, a fashionable res- taurant in The Strand, London WC2.

Junior Carlton Club John Galsworthy’s private club, situated between Pall Mall and St James Square, London SW1.

Kettner’s Restaurant 29 Romilly Street, Soho, London W1.

Lamb House Henry James’s residence in Rye (Kent) from 1899 until his death in 1916.

London Sailors’ Home Opened in 1835 on the site of the demol- ished Brunswick Theatre, the home was situated in Well Street, London E1.

Mont Blanc A French restaurant at 16 Gerrard St, Soho, London W1, in whose upper room a group of writers gathered for regular Tuesday lunch- time meetings. Formed by Edward Garnett, the circle included Edward Thomas, W. H. Davies, Stephen Reynolds, Hilaire Belloc, Muirhead Bone, Ford and, very occasionally, Conrad.

National Liberal Club Ford Madox Ford’s private club, situated at Whitehall Place, London SW1. 214 A Conrad Chronology

Norfolk Hotel 30– 32 Surrey Street, The Strand, London WC2.

Nowachwastów The family estate of the Lubowidzkis, Bobrowski’s parents- in- law.

Oswalds The last – and largest – of the Conrads’ homes, which they occupied from October 1919 until the novelist’s death in 1924, was situated in Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury (Kent). Conrad liked the house, but not its situation – in a hollow enclosed by woods that did not offer any larger view. It became a place of pilgrimage for the numerous admirers and friends of the ageing novelist and the scene of quite lavish entertaining in Conrad’s closing years. See also Christopher Scoble, Letters from Bishopsbourne: Three Writers in an English Village (Cheltenham, 2010).

Pent Farm This old farmhouse in Postling, near Hythe (Kent), was sub- let by Ford in October 1898 and remained the Conrads’ home until September 1907. Residence there brought Conrad nearer to other writers living in the area – notably Ford, Wells, James and Crane – and also allowed him close proximity to the sea, with Hythe only three miles away. At Pent Farm, he also had his first opportu- nity to play the role of English country squire, though eventually, as Najder observes, he probably developed mixed feelings about the place: ‘Jessie later came to regard the years spent at The Pent as the happiest of her married life. Conrad did not share her view. In his mind The Pent must have been associated primarily with incessant grind and mounting debt. But it was at Pent Farm that Conrad wrote the books [‘Youth’ to The Secret Agent] that establish his greatness and determine his position’ (p. 329). For further details, see Borys Conrad, Joseph Conrad’s Homes in Kent (1974).

Restaurant d’Italie 52 Old Compton Street, Soho, London W1.

Romano’s Restaurant A restaurant noted for its fashionable ‘bohemian’ clientele and atmosphere at 399– 400, The Strand, London WC2.

Royal Automobile Club (RAC) Conrad’s regular private club in the 1920s was situated at 89– 91 Pall Mall, London SW1. Locations and Addresses 215

Sandgate H. G. Wells lived in this Kentish coastal town (near Folkestone), first in lodgings and then in Spade Hall.

Someries The Conrads lived in this Bedfordshire house from September 1907 until March 1909. Just before moving in, Conrad described its situation as follows: ‘It is in Bedfordshire 40 minutes from St Pancras. ... It is 2½ miles from Luton; a farmhouse of a rather cosy sort without distinction of any kind, but quite 500 ft above the sea – which is what we both want’ (CL, III, 472– 3). Despite the advantage of being close to London during the eventful period when Ford was establishing the English Review, the house proved to be too expensive to run, and Conrad came to dislike the ‘damned Luton place’ (CL, IV, 125).

Spring Grove This furnished 17th- century manor in Wye, near Ashford (Kent), was lent to the Conrads for a temporary stay between March and September in 1919, before they moved to their last home at Oswalds.

Stanford- le- Hope In this small Essex town, seven miles north of Tilbury and close to the Thames Estuary, the newly married Conrads had their first two rented homes during the period 1896– 98. Conrad was initially attracted to Stanford by the prospect of living near one of his oldest English friends, G. F. W. Hope and his wife, and of resuming with Hope their long- standing tradition of boat- trips together. After a brief period in a semi- detached villa in Victoria Road, the Conrads made the short move in March 1897 to Ivy Walls, a spacious Elizabethan farmhouse on the edge of the town, which they rented until 1898. Maps Conrad’s Divided Poland Conrad’s Map 1

216 Maps 217 EquatorEquator NEW GUINEA ARUARU ISLANDS ISLANDSISLANDS PACIFIC OCEAN PACIFICPACIFIC OCEAN PACIFIC OCEAN PACIFIC AUSTRALIAAUSTRALIA Ternate Ternate Ternate MOLUCCAMOLUCCA ISLES ISLES SEA SEA SEA CELEBES CELEBES CELEBES PHILIPPINESPHILIPPINES Menado Menado Menado SULUSULU SULU ISLANDSISLANDS ISLANDS GOA GOA CELEBESCELEBES CELEBES PALAWAN PALAWAN PALAWAN anjonganjong Mirrah Mirrah Tanjong Mirrah T Tanjong ‘Sambir’ ‘Sambir’ ‘Sambir’ ‘Pantai’ River ‘Pantai’‘Pantai’ River OMBAWA OMBAWA OMBAWA Macassar Macassar Macassar NORTHNORTH NORTH BORNEOBORNEO BORNEO KOTI LOMBOKLOMBOK LOMBOK SEA SEASEA Mataram Mataram Mataram CHINA CHINACHINA SOUTHSOUTH Brunei Brunei Brunei SARAWAK BORNEOBORNEO BORNEO SEA SEASEA JAVA JAVAJAVA Sourabaya Sourabaya JAVAJAVA 1500 1500 Samarang Samarang Samarang Batavia Batavia Batavia CARIMATA CARIMATA CARIMATA GasparGaspar Straits Straits Gaspar Straits FRENCH STRAITSSTRAITS SETTLEMENTSSETTLEMENTS STRAITS SETTLEMENTS INDO-CHINA Singapore Singapore Singapore 1000 1000 Palembang T R A MALAY MALAYMALAY STATES STATESSTATES

FEDERATEDFEDERATED SUMASUMATRA SIAMSIAM Bankok kilometres kilometres kilometres KABUKABU KABU Penang Penang MENANGMENANG MENANG DELI 500 500 ACHEENACHEEN ACHEEN Conrad’s Malay Archipelago Conrad’s OCEANOCEAN OCEAN INDIANINDIAN 0 0 500 1000 1500 Map 2 218 Maps The River Congo, 1890 Map 3 Select Bibliography

The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad, 9 vols (Cambridge, 1983– 2007), General Editors Frederick R. Karl and Laurence Davies, with Owen Knowles, Gene M. Moore and J. H. Stape, have naturally proved to be an invaluable source for day- to- day materials about Conrad’s life and art. Other important primary documents can be found in A Portrait in Letters: Correspondence to and about Joseph Conrad, ed. J. H. Stape and Owen Knowles (Amsterdam, 1996) and ‘My dear Friend’: Further Letters to and about Joseph Conrad, ed. Owen Knowles (Amsterdam, 2008). Detailed and well- written accounts of the evolution of his stories, novels and essays are available in the quickly- expanding Cambridge Edition of the Works of Joseph Conrad, General Editors J. H. Stape and Allan H. Simmons. This edition also includes four volumes of Joseph Conrad: Contemporary Reviews (Cambridge, 2012), an indispensable collection of virtually all of the reviews of Conrad’s work to have appeared in Britain and America during his lifetime. Other important sources (such as the invaluable biographies by Zdzisław Najder and J. H. Stape) are signalled by their inclusion in the ‘Abbreviations’ list. Norman Sherry’s companion volumes Conrad’s Eastern World and Conrad’s Western World (both Cambridge University Press, 1966 and 1971) along with Jerry Allen’s The Sea Years of Joseph Conrad (1967) are mainly factual biographies, following Conrad’s footsteps as a seaman and examining the ‘ real- life’ sources of his fiction. The evolution of Conrad’s literary career forms the substance of Cedric Watts’s com- pact study, Joseph Conrad: A Literary Life (1989). Conrad’s prodigious reading throughout his life is catalogued in David W. Tutein’s Joseph Conrad’s Reading: An Annotated Bibliography (West Cornwall, CT, 1990), while Hans van Marle’s review- article, ‘A Novelist’s Dukedom: From Joseph Conrad’s Library’, The Conradian, 16.1 (1991), 55– 78, adds some 200 items missing from Tutein’s volume. The encyclopaedic Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad by Owen Knowles and Gene M. Moore (Oxford, 2000) includes scores of entries on Conrad’s life, works and literary circle. Another reference work, Edwardian Fiction: An Oxford Companion, ed. Sandra Kemp,

219 220 A Conrad Chronology

Charlotte Mitchell and David Trotter (Oxford, 1997), covers Conrad’s fiction and that of his contemporaries from 1901 to 1910. Readers interested in how Conrad’s works were serialized and when they were translated into other languages will find a veritable treasure- trove in Steven Donovan’s online resource Conrad First: The Joseph Conrad Periodical Archive (www.conradfirst.net). Memoirs, biographies, critical studies, interviews and diaries con- sulted are too numerous to mention individually, although the most important are included under the appropriate authors in the ‘Select Who’s Who’ section. For readers interested in exploring further, a helpful guide to almost 300 less well- known reminiscences can be found in Martin Ray’s Joseph Conrad, Memories and Impressions: An Annotated Bibliography (Amsterdam, 2007); the same author’s Joseph Conrad: Interviews and Recollections (1990) provides an excellent anthology of the most vivid of these. The continuing work of an entire community of Conrad critics can be found in two indispen- sible journals, The Conradian: Journal of the Joseph Conrad Society, UK (London) and Conradiana (Lubbock, Texas).

More specialized studies

Busza, Andrzej, ‘Conrad’s Polish Literary Background and Some Illustrations of the Influence of Polish Literature on his Work’, Antemurale, 10 (1966), 109– 255. Cagle, William R. and Robert W. Trogdon, A Bibliography of Joseph Conrad (unpublished). Conrad, Borys, Joseph Conrad’s Homes in Kent, Joseph Conrad Society (UK) pamphlet (1974). Costanzo, William V., ‘Conrad’s American Visit’, Conradiana, 13 (1981), 7– 18. Fachard, Alexandre, ‘Conrad’s Contracts with William Heinemann, Ltd’, The Conradian, 38.1 (2013), 86– 98. Hervouet, Yves, The French Face of Joseph Conrad (Cambridge, 1990). Jones, Susan, ‘Alice Kinkead and the Conrads’, The Conradian, 33.1 (2008), 103– 18. Kennerley, Alston, ‘Joseph Conrad at the London Sailors’ Home’, The Conradian, 33.1 (2008), 69– 102. Kennerley, Alston, ‘Conrad’s Shipmates in British Ships’, The Conradian, 37.1 (2012), 58– 79. Knowles, Owen and J. H. Stape, ‘Conrad, Galsworthy’s “The Doldrums”, and the Torrens’, The Conradian, 34.1 (2009), 38– 57. Marle, Hans van, ‘“Plucked and Passed on Tower Hill”: Conrad’s Examination Ordeals’, Conradiana, 8 (1976), 99– 109. Select Bibliography 221

Marle, Hans van, ‘Young Ashore: On the Trail of Konrad Korzeniowski in Marseilles’, L’Époque Conradienne, 2 (1976), 22– 34. Marle, Hans van, ‘Lawful and Lawless: Young Korzeniowski’s Adventures in the Caribbean’, L’Époque Conradienne, 17 (1991), 91– 113. Miller, David, ‘His Heart in My Hand: Stories from and about Joseph Conrad’s Sons’, The Conradian, 35.2 (2010), 63– 95. Moore, Gene M., ed. Conrad’s Cities: Essays for Hans van Marle (Amsterdam, 1992). Moore, Gene M., comp. ‘A Descriptive Location Register of Joseph Conrad’s Literary Manuscripts’, The Conradian, 27.2 (2002), 1– 93. Moore, Gene M., Allan H. Simmons and J. H. Stape, ed., Conrad Between the Lines: Documents in a Life (Amsterdam, 2000). Sanderson, I. C. M., A History of Elstree School (privately printed, 1978). Smith, Rosalind Walls, ‘Dates of Composition of Conrad’s Works’, Conradiana, 11 (1979), 63– 87. Stape, J. H., ‘The Chronology of Conrad’s 1914 Visit to Poland’, Polish Review, 29 (1984), 65– 71. Stape, J. H., ‘Conradiana in the 1901 Census and Other Sources of Record’, The Conradian, 33.2 (2008), 142– 57. Stape, J. H. and Allan H. Simmons, ‘The Conrads in Brittany: Some Biographical Notes’, The Conradian, 36.1 (2011), 70– 79. Valuable online links can be found on the Joseph Conrad Society (UK) web- site (www.josephconradsociety.org) listed under the headings ‘Scholarly Resources’ and ‘Student Resources’. Particularly helpful links include those to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (http://beinecke.library.yale.edu), the Modernist Journal Project (www.modjourn.org), the London Gazette for the twentieth century (www.thegazette.co.uk), the genealogical sites, and and to overseas newspaper archives. Other links provide access to listings of Conrad’s ships and shipmates during his entire sea career. Index

Note: In Index 1, references to London and its localities are listed under ‘London’; to newspapers and magazines under ‘Periodicals’; and to Conrad’s ships during his sea-years under ‘Ships’.

1. PEOPLE, PLACES AND Austria, 6, 81 Austro–Hungarian Empire, 128 ORGANIZATIONS Avignon, 163 Adams, Elbridge L., 165, 175 Azof, Sea of, 10 Adams, Margery, 175 Adelaide, 18, 23, 24 Balfour, Rt. Hon. Arthur, Admiralty, 138, 140, 144 75, 76, 88 Africa, 19–22, 106, 108, 180 Balkan War, First, 119 Ajaccio (Corsica), 162–3 Bamou (Congo), 22 Albany, HRH the Duchess Bangka Island, 13 of, 159 Bangkok, 12, 13, 17 Aldington (Kent), 51, 98, 100 Banks, Walter, 23, 25 Alexander, Sir George, 121 Barker, David Captain, 112 Alexandrovitch, Grand Duke Barr, Moering and Co., 14, 19, 23 Sergei, 80 Barrès, Maurice, 137 Algeria, 4 Barrie, J. M., 71, 72, 78, 96, 144, Alvar, Mme: see Harding, Louise 145, 185–6 American United Press, 143 Barron, Joseph, 14 Amsterdam, 16 Bastia (Corsica), 163 Anabaptists, 55 Batty, Mr, 148 Andaman Sea, 15 Beard, Captain Elijah, 12, 13 Anderson, Jane, 135, 136, 138, 139, Beer, Thomas, 173 140, 143, 185 Beerbohm, Max, 160 Anderson, Percy, 145 Belgium, 19, 56, 57 Anglo–Swedish Society, 171 Bennett, Arnold, 42, 50, 73, 74, 119, Antwerp, 22, 28 158, 174, 186 Archer, William, 39 Benrimo, J. Harry, 167, 171 Armentières, 162 Berau (Borneo), 17 Ashford (Kent), 112 Berdichev, 1 Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H., 107 Berlin, 20, 25, 128 Aubry, Frédéric-Ferdinand, 177 Bizet, Georges, 8, 25, 89 Aubry, Thérèse, 177 ‘Black Friday’, 109 Austin, Mary, 165 Blackwood, George, 58, 63, 186 Australia, 10–11, 12, 17–18, Blackwood, James, 63, 23–4, 25 66, 186

222 Index 223

Blackwood, Messrs William & Co, Brussels, 19–20, 22, 26, 30 41, 51, 53, 54, 57–8, 61, 68 Buchan, John, 58 Blackwood, William, 35, 40, 42, Burma, 158, 164 45, 46, 49, 50, 51, 53, 54, 56, Burns, John, 95, 58, 59, 60, 61–2, 63, 64, 66, Burys Court (Reigate, Surrey), 144, 67, 119, 186 155, 159, 160, 161, 163, 164, Blake, Captain Edwin, 15 166, 167, 169, 212 Board of Trade, 27, 116, 117 Buszczyn´ski, Konstanty, 128 Bobrowska, Teofila, 4, 5, 6, 186–7 Buszczyn´ski, Stefan, 5 Bobrowski family, 1 Bobrowski, Tadeusz, 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, Cadby, Will, 123, 131 9–10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, Calais, 162 25, 26, 30, 187 Calcutta, 15 Boer War, 53, 64 Cambridge University, 27, Boma (Congo), 20 123, 173 Bombay, 14 Cameron, Lady Frances, 172 Bone, Captain David, 155, 174, Campbell, Dr Kenneth, 147 187–8 Cameron, Major Sir Maurice, Bone, Gertrude, 179 70, 172 Bone, James, 174, 182, 187–8 Canada, 25, 107 Bone, Muirhead, 174, 176, 179, 180, Candler, Edmund, 153 187–8 Canterbury, 156, 159, 160, Bordeaux, 20 164, 182 Borneo, 17, 28 Cap Corse, 163 Bost, Pastor Charles, 177 Cap Haïtien, 7 Boston (MA), 175 Cape of Good Hope, 10 Bourdin, Martial, 26 Cape Town, 23, 24 Bourne Park (Bishopsbourne, Capes, Harriet M., 32, 92, Kent), 152 97, 99, 108, 119, 153, Brede Place (Brede, Sussex), 50, 52, 157, 188 54, 212 Capri, 77, 79–81, 140 Bridlington, 139 Cardiff, 15, 16, 38 Brighouse, Harold, 140 Casement, Roger, 20, 37, 72, Briquel, Émilie, 30–1, 33 136, 188 Briquel family, 30–1, 33 Cather, Willa, 102 British Academy, 137 Cearne, The (Limpsfield, Surrey), 33, British Merchant Marine, 9, 10, 15, 44, 47–8 27, 155 Cecil, Lady Gwendolen, 159 Brittany, 34–6 Celebes, 17 Bromley (Kent), 133 Cephalonia, 11 Brooke, Minnie, 35 Cerio, Giorgio, 80 Brown, Catherine Cerio, Ignazio, 80 Madox, 67, 72 Cervoni, César, 8, 9 Brownrigg, Sir Douglas, 138, Cervoni, Dominique-André, 8, 9 139, 144 Cesare, Oscar, 175 Bruges, 57, 183 Ceylon, 106 224 Index

Champel-les-Bains (Switzerland), Conrad, Jessie, 22, 25, 29, 30, 31, 22–3, 27–8, 30–1, 90, 91–2 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, Chernigov, 3, 4 43, 53, 60, 61, 62, 63, 66, 71, Chesson, W. H., 28, 188 73, 74, 75, 77, 78, 79, 84, 85, Chew, Professor Samuel C., 170 87, 90, 105, 107, 110, 123, 125, Chislehurst (Kent), 67 130, 134, 135, 136, 139, 141, Chodz´ko, Victor, 7, 8, 163 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 151, Chopin, Frédéric, 158 152, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, Chumbiri (Congo), 21 160, 162, 164, 166, 167, 171, Civil List pension, 56, 108, 136, 174, 176, 179, 180, 181, 182, 143, 171 183, 184, 189–90 Clark, E. Holman, 141 Conrad, Joan (Borys’s wife), 177, Clarke, Bruce, 78 178, 182 Clerk, George Russell, 138 Conrad, John, 87, 91, 111, 119, 121, Clifford, Hugh Sir, 52, 69, 70, 123, 124, 137, 146, 148, 158, 106, 107, 132, 177, 181, 159, 164, 181, 182, 189–90 188–9 Conrad, Philip J., 179, 182 Clodd, Edward, 70 Constantinople, 10 Coadou-Brinter, Jeanne-Marie, 34 Cook, Captain William, 10 Coadou-Brinter, Vincent, 34 Cope, Captain W. H., 23, 24 Coburn, Alvin Langdon, 89 Corsica, 161, 162–3 Cockerell, Sydney, 165, 182 Courtney, W. L., 42 Colchester (Essex), 153, 174 Cracow, 5, 6, 127, 128, 129 Colefax, Lady Sybil, 172 Craig, Captain James, 17 Columbia, 8 Craigie, Pearl, 65, 76 Colvin family, 127, 131, 133, 145, Crane, Cora, 48, 50, 56, 93, 190 157, 163, 164 Crane family, 44, 45, 52, 54 Colvin, Lady Frances, 166, 182 Crane, Stephen, 41, 43, 44, 50, 53, Colvin, Sir Sidney, 73, 81, 82, 93, 56, 190 105, 115, 117, 119, 121, 124, Crippen, Dr H. H., 107 126, 133, 137, 142, 143, 144, Cromwell, John, 147 145, 146, 153, 189 Curle, Muriel, 153 Compagnie du Chemin de fer du Curle, Richard, 106, 119, 122, 123, Congo, 20 127, 130, 131, 133, 136, 138, Congo Free State, 19–22, 72 141, 152, 153, 155, 156, 157, Congreve, William, 147 158, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, Conrad, Borys, 43, 45, 50, 57, 60, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 66, 68, 70, 78, 82, 84, 85, 87, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 90, 91, 92, 100, 106, 109, 110, 181, 182, 183, 184, 191 111, 112, 121, 123, 124, 126, Cuverville, 177 127, 128, 130, 132, 133, 135, 141, 143, 146, 148, 149, 150, Da˛browski, Marian, 125 151, 152, 153, 158, 160, 161, Daimler Motor Co., 170 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 169, Daudet, Alphonse, 30 170, 172, 173, 174, 176, 177, Davidson, Jo, 136 178, 181, 182, 189–90 Davies, W. H., 110, 132, 137 Index 225

Davis, Clare Ogden, 182 Effenberger-S´liwin´ski, Jan, 161 Davis, John W., 175 Effendi Hill (Long Island), 174, 175–6 Davis, Robert Hobart, 125 Einstein, Albert, 83 Davray, H.-D., 64, 80, 89 Eliot, George, 67 Dawson, A. J., 76, 78, 83, 191 Ellis, Captain Henry, 17 Dawson, Ernest, 76, 191 Elstree (Herts), 24–5, 26–7, 30, 32, Dawson, Francis Warrington, 106, 87, 93, 111, 145, 171 112, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, Empress of Ireland (ship), 127 122, 123, 126, 127, 135, 191–2 England, 10, 15, 92 Deal (Kent), 74, 159 English Channel, 13 Delcommune, Camille, 21, 22 English language, 10, 11, 15, 20, 26, Delestang, Jean-Baptiste-Louis, 7, 8, 42, 90, 105, 147 9, 12 English Stage Society, 81, 83, 147 Dent, Hugh R., 148, 156, 157, Epstein, Jacob, 180, 193 182, 192 Escarras, Captain Casimir, 8 Dent, J. M., 120, 154, 158, 159, 170, Eton College, 27 172, 192 Evans, Sir Francis, 47 Dent, & Sons, J. M., 118, 141, 155, Everett, John, 166 159, 163, 173, 184 Everitt, S. A., 161, 165 Derebczynka, 2, Eymar, Louis-Charles, 89 Doubleday family, 174–6 Doubleday, F. N., 121, 124, 126, 137, Fagan, James, 153 150, 151, 159, 161, 166, 172, Fagan, Mary, 153 175, 176, 192 Falmouth (Cornwall), 13 Doubleday, Nelson, 159 Far East, 103, 104 Doubleday, Page Co., 126, 161, 173, Fecht, Richard, 10 181, 184 Ferber, Edna, 176 Doughty, C. M., 171 Ferdinand, Archduke Franz, 127 Douglas, Norman, 80, 83, 96, 100, First World War, 124, 127–50 101, 108, 110, 111, 112, 113, Firth of Forth, 139 115, 120, 121, 131, 140, 192–3 Fisher, H. A. L., 127, 147 Douglas, Robert Sholto, 137 Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 175 Dover, 56, 79 Folkestone (Kent), 104, 139, 156 Dover Patrol, 164 Ford family, 51, 54, 56, 57, 60, 63, Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 136 65, 67, 68, 69, 71, 91, 98, 130 Dummett, Elizabeth, 134, 142, 145, Ford, Ford Madox, 44, 47, 48, 49, 157, 169, 170, 174, 197 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, Duncan, Captain Archibald, 14 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, Dundee, 15 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76–7, 78, Dunkirk, 14 79, 81, 83, 84, 86–7, 88, 90, 92, Duteil, Captain Jean-Prosper, 7 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, Dymchurch (Kent), 111 102, 103, 106, 109–10, 113, 115, 120, 133, 137, 138, 140, Easter Rebellion (Dublin), 137 141, 165, 166, 178, 180, 181, Edinburgh, 139 183, 193–4 Edward VII, 59, 106 Ford, Lionel, 27 226 Index

Forster, E. M., 162 Garnett family, 33, 39, 44, 47 Foster, S. Nevile, 132, 149, 150 Garnett, Olive, 62, 69, 73 France, 8, 80, 88, 135, 148, 170, Garnett, Olivia, 37, 41 172, 177 Garnett, Richard, 37 France, Anatole, 90 Garnett, Robert, 97, 106 Franco–Canadian Transport Co., 25 Garrod, Ashley, 126 Franco–Prussian War, 44 Geneva, 22, 79, 91, 96 Frederic, Harold, 44 Genoa, 11, 129 Freiesleben, Johannes, 20 George V, 106, 111, 152 French Guinea, 20 George, Dolly, 43 French language, 3, 4, 6, 23, 42, 147 George, Jane, 29, 34, 36, 60, 61 Fresh Air Art Society, 121–2 George, W. L., 145 Froud, Captain Albert, 25 Georgeon, Ludwik, 5 Fumemba (Congo), 22 German language, 5 Germany, 56, 67, 77, 79, 128 Galsworthy, Ada, 75, 174 Gibbon family, 100, 101, 102, 103, Galsworthy family, 66, 78, 81, 83, 107, 111, 117, 118, 121, 122, 84, 87, 88, 89, 92, 93, 94, 101, 123, 131 121, 145, 147, 153, 155, 163, Gibbon, Maisie, 196 164, 170 Gibbon, Perceval, 95, 103, 106, Galsworthy, John, 24–5, 27, 38, 39, 107, 108, 112, 115, 117, 48, 49, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 121, 124, 125, 131, 132, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67, 151, 152, 196 69, 70, 71, 73, 74, 75, 77, 80, Gibraltar, 7 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 92, Gide, André, 106, 111, 114, 93, 95, 96, 97, 99, 101, 102, 119, 120, 137, 142, 147, 103, 105, 108, 109, 118, 121, 155, 177, 196 128, 134, 136, 139, 144, 145, Giens Peninsula, 163 146, 148, 164, 166, 172, 194–5 Giffen, Robert L., 153 Gambetta, Léon, 142 Gissing, George, 54, 61, 67 Garden City (NY), 175, 176 Glasgow, 48, 139, 174 Gardiner, Major Gordon, 148, 154, Glasgow, Ellen, 127 161, 166, 170, 173, 174, 182 Górski, Kazimierz, 129 Garland family, 170, 171, 177 Gosse, Edmund, 27, 59, 65, 75, 76, Garland, Hamlin, 170 82, 107, 136, 147, 154, 196–7 Garland, Mary Isobel, 170 Gosse, Joseph-Louis-Hubert, 20 Garnett, Constance, 33 Gounod, Charles-François, 134, 142 Garnett, David, 67 Graham, Gabriela Cunninghame, Garnett, Edward, 19, 23, 28, 29, 30, 88, 197 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, Graham, R. B. Cunninghame, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 50, 42, 45, 47, 51, 66, 69, 75, 76, 52, 55, 58, 59, 65, 67, 69, 73, 88, 102, 107, 111, 124, 134, 76, 83, 88, 89, 93, 97, 106, 109, 139, 145, 151, 155, 157, 158, 110, 111, 112, 113, 119, 138, 166, 169, 170, 182, 183, 197 140, 142, 145, 146, 148, 151, Grand Bazaar (charity event), 52 154, 159, 162, 165, 170, 172, Grand Guignol, 160, 161 174, 177, 182, 184, 195 Grangemouth (Scotland), 33 Index 227

Granton Harbour Hope, G. F. W., 11, 13, 16, 23, 25, (near Edinburgh), 139 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 40, 42, 54, Gravesend (Kent), 12 99, 114, 117, 159, 165, 171, Greece, 11 174, 198–9 Greenhithe (Kent), 112, 117, 140 Hope, Linton, 131 Greiffenhagen, Maurice, 150 Hope, Muriel, 77 Gulf of Siam, 17 House, Colonel Edward, 175 Gwynn, Stephen, 55, 56, 58 Hudson, W. H., 51, 73, 83, 88, 117, 170, 172, 199 Haïti, 7–8, 9 Hueffer, Christina, 60, 68 Halifax (Canada), 25 Hueffer, Elsie, 62, 63, 66, 70, Hallowes, Lilian M., 74, 98, 99, 144, 71, 76, 77, 78, 101, 102, 146, 148, 162, 168, 197–8 103, 199 Hamburg, 128 Hueffer, Ford Madox see Ford, Ford Harding, Louise (Mme Alvar), 163, Madox 174, 178 Hugo, Victor, 159 Hardy, Dudley, 150 Hull, 15 Hardy, Thomas, 70 Humières, Robert d’, 81, 91 Harou, Prosper, 20 Huneker, J. G., 118 Harper & Brothers Co., 68, Hunt, Violet, 55, 101, 115, 133 69, 104 Hythe (Kent), 50, 69, 92, 100, 156 Harris, Frank, 108, 148 Harrison, Austin, 108, 115 Ibsen, Henrik, 54, 144 Harrogate (Yorks), 127 Île-Grande, 34 Harrow School, 27 India, 14, 15 Harvard University, 175 Irving, Henry B., 135, 138, 141, 142 Harvey, George, 69, 75 Irving, Laurence, 113 Harwich (Essex), 128 Italy, 11, 67, 142 Hastings, Macdonald B., 138, 141, Ivory Coast, 20 142, 144, 151, 198 Heath, Ellen (‘Nellie’), 44 Jackson, Charles Granville, 25 Heinemann, William, 57, 68, 155, Jacques, W. H., 24, 157, 159, 198 James, Harriet, 175 Heinemann, William & Co., James, Henry, 36, 39, 51, 52, 54, 59, 37, 40, 44, 53, 55, 59, 64, 65, 67, 71, 72, 73, 85, 88, 93, 75, 161 117, 125, 133, 135, 199–200 Henley, W. E., 30, 36, 37, 38, 48, 52, Jardin des Pamplemousses 66, 70, 73, 198 (Mauritius), 18 Hidaka, Tadaichi, 170 Java, 16 Hirn, Karin, 72 Jean-Aubry, G., 106, 147, 148, 149, Hirn, Yrjö, 72 150, 152, 154, 155, 156, 157, Holland, Michael, 105 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, Holt, Lawrence, 158, 159 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, Hope family, 29, 36, 54, 58, 77, 173, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 83, 118, 122, 142, 153, 182, 183, 184, 200 159, 165 Jerrold, Walter, 87 Hope, Fountaine, 54 John, Augustus, 78, 123 228 Index

Jones, Captain Richard, 16 Levy, Jose G., 161 Jones, Sir Robert, 145, 147, 156, 158, Lingard, William, 17 166, 167, 171, 180, 181, 200 Liverpool, 139, 155, 156, 158, 171 Liverpool University Club, 155 Karrakis, S., 165 Löhr, Marie, 151 Kauser Agency, 153 London I. General: 10, 11, 12, 13, Keating, George, 179, 184 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, Keen, William Brock, 23 25, 26, 28, 29, 36, 41, 42, 44, Ker, W. P., 79 45, 51, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, Kerch (Sea of Azov), 10 64, 66, 68, 69, 70, 73–4, 75, Kiev, 3, 4, 10 76, 77–9, 82, 84–5, 87–8, 89, King, Joan Madeline, 170 92, 93, 94, 95, 105, 109, 111, Kinkead, Alice S., 162, 164, 166, 115, 116, 118, 119, 120, 121, 172, 181 122, 125, 126, 128, 130, 131, Kinshasa, 20, 21, 22 132, 134, 135, 136, 138, 139, Kipling, Rudyard, 88, 159 142, 144–6, 147–8, 149, 150, Kitchener, Lord Horatio, 130 151, 153, 154, 155, 158, 160, Klein, Georges-Antoine, 21 161, 162, 163, 167, 168, 169, Knokke-aan-Zee (Belgium), 56, 57 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 176, Knopf, Alfred A., 107, 121, 173 177, 179, 180, 181 Koch, Captain Ludvig, 21 London II. Localities etc. Korzeniowska, Ewa, 1, 2, 3, 4, (selected): 167, 200–1 Addison Rd, 78, 87 Korzeniowski, Apollo, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Æolian Hall, 119, 141, 174, 212 181, 200–1 Alhambra Music-Hall, 127 Korzeniowski family, 1–2, 3 Ambassadors Theatre, 171 Krieger, Adolf P., 11, 15, 19, 34, 40, Athenæum Club, 146, 212 42, 45, 50, 201–2 Bedford Square, 146 Krynica, 6 British Museum, 37, 157, 158 Brown’s Hotel, 160, 162, 166 La Reine (yacht), 52 Comedy Theatre, 163, 164 Lake Leman (Switzerland), 31 Covent Garden, 25, 147 Lancashire, 23, 25 Curzon Hotel, 169, 171, 174, 176, Lannion, 34 177, 179, 213 Larbaud, Valery, 111 Dreadnought Seamen’s Hospital, 12 Lardner, Ring, 175 Durrants Hotel, 151 Laski Film Co., 153, 160, 163 Foreign Office, 137, 138 Latin language, 5 Garrick Club, 45, 58, 138 Lawrence, T. E., 158 Gatti’s Restaurant, 68, 69, 213 Le Goffic, Charles, 35 German Hospital, 22 Le Havre, 8, 177 Globe Theatre, 151, 152 Leeds City Art Gallery, 44 Gordon Place, 73 Leigh-on-Sea (Essex), 142 Goupil Gallery, 147 Lemberg, 4, 5, 6, 7 Greenwich Observatory, 26 Lenormand, H.-R., 162 Home Office, 136 Leopold II, King, 19, 72 Hyde Park Mansions, 144–6, 148 Index 229

Kingsway Theatre (Brixton), 144 Lowestoft (Suffolk), 10, 139 Lawrence Mansions, 66 Lublin, 20 Little Theatre, 160, 161 Lucas, E. V., 29, 37, 48, 78, 89, London Library, 39 101, 145 Mecca Tavern, 38 Lucas family, 73 Monico’s, 41 Łuczyniec, 2, Mont Blanc, 83, 93, 95, 119, 213 Luton (Beds), 92, 109 Morley Hotel, 64 Lutosławski, Wincenty, 40, 51 National Gallery, 33 Lynd, Robert, 98 National Liberal Club, 28, 86 Lyons (France), 7, 162, 163 National Portrait Gallery, 136, Lyons, Nellie, 90, 104, 151 145, 179, 180 New English Arts Club, 75 Maas, William, 114, 119 Norfolk Hotel, 125, 126, MacAlarney, Robert, 163 129, 131, 134, 136, 138, McClure, Phillips & Co., 60, 69 139, 140, 142, 144, 149, McClure, Robert, 46, 48, 51, 54, 56, 155, 176, 214 59, 60 Orthopædic Hospital (Shepherd’s McClure, S. S., 44, 64 Bush), 145 McDonald, Captain L. B., 14 Polish Legation, 181 MacDonald, Rt. Hon. Ramsay, 181 Princes Square, 77, 84 McIntyre, Dr John, 48 Reform Club, 39 McKay, Captain John, 10 Restaurant d’Italie, 29, 37, MacKellar, Dorothea, 117 48, 214 McKenna, Stephen, 130 Romano’s, 139, 144, 214 McKinnel, Norman, 163, 164, 167 Royal Society, 137–8 Mackintosh, Dr Robert, 101, 102, Royal Automobile Club (RAC), 148, 149, 160, 161, 164 145, 168, 170, 172, 176, 177, McWhir, Captain John, 16 179, 214 Madeira, 4 Royalty Theatre, 83 Madras, 14 Sailors’ Home, 11, 12, 14, Madrid, 87 119, 213 Maguelone, 89 St Agnes Place, 84 Malacca Strait, 15 St James’s Hall, 51 Malay Archipelago, 11, 28 Shipmasters’ Society, 25 Malta, 10 US Embassy, 153 Maltyby, H. F., 160 Verrey’s Restaurant, 159 Mansfield, Katherine, 158 Waldorf Hotel, 131 Manyanga (Congo), 21, 22 War Office, 148 Marienbad, 14 Wellington Club, 70 Marris, Captain Carl M., 103, 104, London, Jack, 132 109, 112, 118, 202 Long Island Club (NY), 175 Marseilles, 7, 8, 9–10, 81, 162 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 175 Marshall, Archibald, 93 Longfield (Kent), 149 Martindale, Mary, 78, 96 Longman and Co., 37 Martindale, William, 63 Lowell, James Russell, 175 Martinique, 7–9, 230 Index

Marwood, Arthur, 87, 100, 101, 106, Muntok, 13 108, 112, 114, 115, 121, 122, Murray, Gilbert, 76, 145 123, 131, 137, 202 Murray, Hallam, 65 Marwood family, 105 Massingham, Henry, 144, 145 Naples, 11, 79, 80, 81 Masterman, C. F. G., 95 Napoleon Bonaparte, 158, 162 Matadi (Congo), 20, 21 National Lifeboat Association, 174 Mauritius, 18 Nelson, Horatio, Viscount, 83 Mavrogordato, John, 117 New England, 175 Maxwell, Perriton, 116 New Haven (CT), 175 Mears, Edward Gardner, 23 New York, 174–6, 178 Mechanical Transport Corps, 133 Newbolt, Henry, 75, 76, 81, 82, Mégroz, R. L., 171 86, 203 Melbourne, 18 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 10, 13 Meldrum, David S., 35, 41, 46, 50, Newfoundland, 29 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 62, 63, Newspapers, see Periodicals 66, 67, 182, 202–3 Newton, John, 12, 16 Meldrum family, 54 Nice, 163 Meloney, Marie, 158 Nicholas II, Tsar, 84, 141 Meltzer, Charles H., 158 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 54 Messina, 11 Nobel Prize for Literature, 151 Methuen, Algernon, 95, 111, 120 Noble, Edward, 32, 203 Methuen, Algernon & Co., 79, 83, Nordau, Max, 49 88, 101, 123, 124 North Sea, 32, 78, 139, 140 Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 8 Northcliffe, Lord Alfred, 137, 139, Michie, Alexander, 58 140, 146, 158, 164, 170, 203–4 Milan, 129 Northcote, Lady Alice, 159 Military Service Act, 135 Nowochwastów, 3, 4, 214 Millais, Sir John Everett, 154, 159 Millais, Lady Mary, 170 O’Connor, T. F., 82 Mille, Pierre, 160 Odessa, 4 Millet, Jean-François, 43 Offenbach, Jacques, 8 Minlacowie (South Australia), 18 Olmeijer, Karel William, 17 Miragoâne, 9 Orléans, 162 Mniszek, Count Władisław, 5, 6 Orzeszkowa, Eliza, 51, 129 Mohegan (ship), 48 Ournier, Captain Sever, 7 Monte Carlo, 9 Oxford, 130, 132 Montpellier, 84, 85–6, 89–91 Oxford University, 169 Morley, Christopher, 174 Oxted (Surrey), 44 Morrell, Lady Ottoline, 122, 123, 203 Paderewski, Ignacy, 131, 175 Mortlake (Surrey), 151, 160, Page, Arthur, 176, 177 161, 163 Page Farm (Stanford, Kent), 120 Moscow, 2, 5, 80, 144 Page, Frank C., 140 Munro, Captain Alexander, 11 Page, Mollie, 177 Munro, Neil, 48, 174 Page, Walter Hines, 126, 129, 140 Index 231

Palavas-sur-Mer, 89 Metropolitan Magazine, 110, 114, Paramor, William, 46 124, 125, 131 Paramount Film Co., 147, 153 Munsey’s Magazine, 125, 131 Paris, 8, 19, 22, 23, 28, 31, 32, 33, Nash’s Magazine, 116 79, 81, 89, 90, 101, 143 New Republic, 148 Paris Peace Conference, 151 New Review, 30, 38, 40 Partington, Wilfred, 173 New York Herald, 107, 112, 114, Pathé Frères Cinema Ltd., 117 115, 121 Paton, Captain Frederick, 25, 46 New York Times, 118 Patras, 11 New York Times Saturday Review, 61 Pawling, S. S., 37, 39, 40, 41, 44, North American Review, 69, 78, 109 50, 55, 59, 61, 65, 75, 161, 166, Nouvelle Revue Française, 183 172, 204 Oswestrian, 171 Paymaster General, 143 Outlook, 44, 46, 54, 86 Pécher, Victor, 22 Pall Mall Magazine, 59, 63, 74, 79, P.E.N. International, 166 84, 90, 119 Penarth (near Cardiff), 15, 16 Pictorial Review, 165, 171, 177 Penfield, Frederic C., 129, 157, 204 Quarterly Review, 78, 118 Penzance (Cornwall), 11 Ridgway’s, 88 Periodicals and newspapers St Stephen’s Review, 23 (selected): Saturday Review, 31, 34, 44, 183 Academy, 43, 45, 48, 50, 72 Spectator, 32 Academy and Literature, 67 Speaker, 76, 83 Blackwood’s, 39, 41, 45, 46, 49, 50, Standard, 83 53, 58, 65, 66, 82, 83 Standard (Lowestoft), 10 Daily Chronicle, 31, 50, 58, 114, Star, 133 130, 148 Strand, 78, 139 Daily Mail, 61, 74, 93, 103, 107, Time, 174 119, 146, 152, 176, 182 Times Literary Supplement, 126, Daily News, 98 143, 176, 183 Daily Telegraph, 15, 42 Times, The, 48, 78, 93, 119, Dwutygodnik, 2 168, 183 English Review, 73, 87, 94, 96, 98, Tit-Bits, 16 99, 101, 102, 103, 108, 109, T. P.’s Weekly, 68, 70, 72, 73, 111, 114, 115, 116, 117, 135 79, 125 Evening Standard (London), 15 Western Mail (Cardiff), 38 Everyman, 120 World’s Work, 75, 78 Fortnightly Review, 183 Perse, St-John, 117 Harper’s Magazine, 84, 85, 104, 108 Phelps, Annabel, 175 Illustrated London News, 45, 47, 49, Phelps, Professor William Lyon, 175 51, 60, 127 Piłsudski, Józef, 157 Kraj, 5, 40, 51 Pinker, Eric S., 154, 167, 168, 172, Land and Water, 134, 136, 149, 173, 174, 176, 177, 179, 180, 150, 151 181, 204 Lloyd’s Magazine, 150 Pinker family, 154, 155, 160, 162, Manchester Guardian, 58, 172 164, 166 232 Index

Pinker, J. B., 53, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, Quiller-Couch, A. T., 42 64, 68, 69, 70, 71, 74, 75, 76, Quinn, John, 112, 149, 152, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 86, 178, 206 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 103, 104, 105, Rakowice Cemetery, 5, 128 106, 108, 110, 111, 114–15, Rakowska-Luniewska, Irena, 182 116, 117, 118, 120, 121, 122, Ramsgate (Kent), 111, 138, 139 123, 125, 126, 128, 129, 130, Ravel, Maurice, 170, 171, 172, 174 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 137, Ready (ship), 139 138, 139, 140, 142, 143, 144, Redmayne, E. B., 24, 25 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, Redon, Odilon, 154 155, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, Renouf, Eugénie, 18 162, 163, 164, 166, 167, 168, Retinger family, 119, 121, 127, 204–5 128, 130 Pinker, Margit, 181 Retinger, Józef Hieronim, 106, 119, Pinker, Mary, 174 125, 127, 128, 131–2, 137, 138, Pinker, Œnone, 167 143, 182, 206 Pinker, Ralph, 152, 159, 174, 204 Retinger, Otolia, 119, 122, 127, Pipe, Captain Samuel, 10 128, 206 Plehve, Vyacheslav de, 76 Reynolds, Stephen, 93, 94, 96, 106, Plymouth, Earl of, 118 110, 114, 115, 151, 207 Poland, 1, 19, 20, 51, 92, 124, 125, Rhys, Ernest, 160, 172 127, 128, 129, 132 Ridgeway, Agnes, 171 Polish Association, 134, 141 Ripley Court (Surrey), 146, 158 Polish–Russian War, 157, 159 Rivière, Isabelle, 137 Polish War Relief Committee, 131 Roberts, Cecil, 146 Pomaran´ski, Stefan, 181 Robey, George, 128 Pompeii, 81 Rodin, Auguste, 64 Poole, E. A., 16 Rome, 79 Poradowska, Marguerite, 19, 22, 23, Roosevelt, Theodore, 106 26, 27, 28, 31, 56, 68, 81, 89, Rosyth (near Edinburgh), 139 99, 205–6 Rothenstein, Alice, 81, 182 Poradowski, Aleksandr, 19 Rothenstein family, 78, 79, 93, Port-au-Prince (Haïti), 9 119, 147 Port Elizabeth, 14, 18 Rothenstein, William, 70, 75, 76, 79, Port Louis, 18 81, 82, 86, 87, 89, 92, 94, 104, Port of London, 75 106, 116, 131, 137, 147, 207 Port Said, 13 Rouen, 25–6, 140, 149, 162 Powell, John, 119, 158, 174, 175 Royal Bounty Fund, 75–6, 81–2, 86 Prague, 14 Royal Literary Fund, 65, 75, 95, 96 Prems´yl, 5 Royal Naval Reserve, 138, 140, 148 Preston (Lancs), 24 Royal Society of Literature, 107, 133 Prince of Wales, 164 Rubinstein, Artur, 126, 129 Prothero, G. W., 78 Ruckinge (Kent), 127 Pugh, Edwin, 49 Russell, Bertrand, 106, 109, 123, Pulman, Adam Marek, 6 124, 125, 128, 166, 207–8 Index 233

Russell, Dora Winifred, 166 Shakespeare, William, 15, 126 Russell, John Conrad, 166 Shaw, George Bernard, 65, 83, 133 Russia, 1, 2, 3, 7, 80, 84, 128, Sheerness, 40 131, 141 Sheffield, 127, 132 Russian Revolutions, 141, 144 Ships (in Conrad’s early career): Russo–Japanese War, 73, 83 Adowa, 25–6, 46 Ruyters, André, 148, 149 Annie Frost (?), 12 Duke of Sutherland, 10–11 Sailors’ Home (Singapore), 13, 17 Europa, 11 St Augustine’s Abbey School Falconhurst, 16 (Ramsgate), 111 Highland Forest, 16 St Gregory’s School (Luton), 92 Loch Etive, 12 St Helena, 14, 15, 23, 24 Mavis, 10 St Lucia, 8 Mont-Blanc, 7–8 St Malo, 34 Narcissus, 14 St Petersburg, 76, 80, 96 Otago, 17–18 Saint-Pierre (Martinique), 7, 8 Palestine, 12–13 St Thomas, 7, 8 Riversdale, 14 Samarang (Java), 16 Roi des Belges, 21 Sandeman, Christopher, 154, Sainte-Antoine, 8–9, 159, 208 Skimmer of the Sea, 10 Sanderson, Agnes, 87 Tilkhurst, 15 Sanderson, E. L., 24, 33, 37, 39, 53, Torrens, 23–5 55, 108, 111, 115, 208 Tremolino (?), 9 Sanderson family, 25, 26–7, 30, 32, Vidar, 17 93, 106, 145 Shorter, C. K., 44, 47, 51, 141, 151 Sanderson, Katherine, 24, 26–7, 88 Sienkiewicz, Henryk, 141 Sandgate (Kent), 48, 49, 55, 61, Sierra Leone, 20 63, 215 Singapore, 13, 15, 16–17 Sanguszko, Prince Roman, 4 Skirmunt, Konstanty, 161 Sardou, Victorien, 8 Slough (Berks), 57 Sarolea, Charles, 120 Smith, Elder & Co., 37, 68 Sassoon, Siegfried, 150 Smith, Reginald, 37 Sauter, Blanche, 87 Soban´ski, Władysław, 150 Sauter, Georg, 66, 73, 136 Social Democratic Federation, 51 Scandinavia, 59 Société Anonyme Belge pour le Schmidt, Louis-Edward, 18 Commerce du Haut-Congo, Scotland, 22, 33 19–22 Scott-Moncrieff, C. K., 171, 173 Solari, Jean-Baptiste, 7 Scribe, Eugène, 8 Somme, Battle of the, 137, 165 Scribner’s (publishers), 41 South Africa, 14, 18, 32, 35, 55, Sea of Azov, 10 112, 114 Seal, Audrey, 177 South America, 8, 69 Seddlescombe (Sussex), 167 Southampton, 18, 34, 176 Senegal, 20 Southsea (Hants), 135 Serbia, 128 Spain, 9, 45 234 Index

Spanish Conquistadores 69 Thames, River, 23, 40, 112 Spanish–American War, 45, 46 Thomas, Edward, 107, 108, 136, Spanish language, 89 140, 142, 209 Spenser, Edmund, 182 Thorndike, Sybil, 170 Spicer-Simson, Theodore, 164 Thys, Major Albert, 19, 20 Spiridion family, 15, 16, 38 Tilbury (Essex), 129 Spiridion, Józef, 15, 38, 39, 208 Titanic (ship), 116, 117 Spiridion, Wyładysław, 15 Tittle, Walter, 169, 170, 171, 172, Squire, J. C., 172 174, 178, 179, 180, 209 Stanford-le-Hope (Essex), 29, 36, 54, Tobin, Agnes, 109, 110, 111, 112, 57, 77, 215 113, 114, 209 Stanley Falls, 21 Tonbridge (Kent), 111 Stanley Pool, 20, 21 Tonbridge School, 111, 164, 171 Stepniak, Fanny, 44 Topolnica, 5 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 24 Torres Strait, 18 Stokes, Frederick A., 45 Toulon, 163 Stowting (Kent), 105 Tourneur, Maurice, 160 Stuart, Captain William, 12 Treaty of Vereeniging, 64 Street, Julian, 176 Treaty of Versailles, 152 Suffragettes, 109, 114 Tree, Beerbohm, 73 Sumatra, 13 Triana, S. P., 71 Surrey Scientific Apparatus Co., 151, Trosley (Kent), 100, 102, 107, 111, 160, 164 115, 118, 122, 123, 125 Sutherland, Captain J. G., 139 Tuscania (ship), 174 Sutherland, James, 10 Swettenham, Frank, 70 Ukraine, 1, 25, 157 Switzerland, 6, 22, 27–8, 30–1, 90, University of Texas at Austin, 181 91–2 Unwin family, 31, 35 Sydney, 11, 12, 18 Unwin, T. Fisher, 26, 27, 28, 30, 32, Symons, Arthur, 44, 97, 109, 110, 34, 36, 37, 40, 41, 43, 46, 75, 111, 117, 121, 123, 131, 137, 111, 132, 145, 209–10 138, 159, 208–9 Unwin, T. Fisher, & Co., 26, 27, 28, Symons, Rhoda, 109, 30, 33, 39, 41, 42, 45 Syroczyn´ski, Antoni, 6 US–Panama Treaty, 71 Syzmanowski, Karol, 161 United States, 44, 45, 118, 126, 142, Szembek, Count Zygmunt, 80 167, 172, 173, 174–6, 181

Tanjung Redeb (Borneo), 17 Valéry, Paul, 171, 172, 178 Tarkington, Booth, 124 Vance, Arthur T., 165 Tarver, J. C., 96 Vedrenne, J. E., 156 Tatra Mountains, 128 Venezuela, 8, 67 Tauschnitz Co., 36 Verhaeren, Émile, 141 Tebb, Dr Albert E., 75, 79, 87, Vernon, Frank, 154, 155, 156 93, 154 Victoria, Queen, 16, 40, 59 Tenerife, 20 Vienna, 7, 129 Teplice, 14 Ville de Maceio (ship), 20 Index 235

Virgin Islands, 7 Wise, Thomas J., 141, 149, 159, 177, Voisins, Auguste Gilbert de, 154 182, 211 Vologda, 2–3 Wister, Mary Channing, 180 Vylars, Cilia de, 160 Withers & Co., 170 Wittersham (Kent), 121 Wade, Allan, 172 Woolf, Virginia, 143, 158, 162, 183 Wade, Claudine, 172 Worcester (), 112, Wagner, Richard, 26, 64 117, 140 Wales, 171 Writers’ Memorial Petition, 107 Wallace, Edgar, 107 Wrotham (Kent), 103 Walpole, Hugh, 137, 145, 146, Württemberg, 5 147, 148, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 158, 160, 162, Yale University, 179 164, 165, 167, 168, 170, Yarmouth, 139 177 178, 210 Yeysk (Sea of Azof), 10 Ward, Dolores, 11 Ward, Mrs Humphry, 126 Zagórska, Aniela (mother), 50, 128, Ward, William, 11 129, 211 Warsaw, 2, 5, 20, 25, 38 Zagórska, Aniela (daughter), 157, Watson, E. L. Grant, 122, 143 172, 211 Watson, Helen, 37 Zagórska, Karola, 137, 156 Watson, Hilda, 166 Zagórski Karol, 33, 44, 211 Watson, William & Co., 59, 68, 73 Zakopane, 128, 129 Watt, A. P., 37 Zangwill, Israel, 43 Wauters, A. J., 20 Zelie,. John Sheridan, 175–6 Wedgwood family, 127, 131, 153, Zeromski, Stefan, 129 170, 174, 182 Zhitomir, 2, 4 Wedgwood, Sir Ralph L., 170, 210 Zubrzycka, Emilia, 127 Wells family, 50, 55 Zurich, 7 Wells H. G., 31, 34, 35, 42, 43, 48, 49, 50, 52, 54, 61, 63, 65, 2. CONRAD’S WORKS 70, 72, 74, 76, 85, 88, 92, 96, 210–11 Almayer’s Folly, 17, 19, 20, 23, 24, Weston, John, 16 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, Wharton, Edith, 119, 133 34, 42, 137, 140, 172 Whistler, James, McNeill, 64 ‘Alphonse Daudet’ (NLL), 44 Willard, Catherine, 142, 144, 147, ‘Amy Foster’ (TOS), 57, 60, 61 161, 170 ‘Anarchist, An’ (SS), 84 Willard, Grace, 136, 145, 146, ‘Anatole France I. “Crainquebille’’’ 154, 182 (NLL), 76, 90 Winawer, Bruno, 164 ‘Anatole France II. L’Île des pingouins’ Winchelsea (Sussex), 59, 60, (NLL), 98, 99 62, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 71, Arrow of Gold, The, 8, 9, 140, 143, 86–7, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 150, Winchester (Hants), 92 152, 154, 155, 159 Wise, Frances Louise, 177 ‘Ascending Effort, The’ (NLL), 107 236 Index

Author’s Notes, 29, 40, 112, 132, ‘Faithful River, The’ (Mirror), 76, 78 136, 140, 143, 144, 152, 154, ‘Falk’ (TOS), 17, 57, 58, 59, 60, 63 156, 157, 159 ‘Familiar Preface, A’ (A Personal ‘Autocracy and War’ (NLL), 78, 79, Record), 112 80, 81 ‘Fine Art, The’ (Mirror), 74 ‘First News’ (NLL), 148 ‘Because of the Dollars’ (WT), 120, ‘First Thing I Remember, The’ 124, 125, 161 (CDOUP), 167 ‘Black Mate, The’ (TH), 16, 95 ‘Flight’ (NLL), 139 Book of Job, The, 164 Foreword to A Hugh Walpole ‘Books’ (NLL), 83 Anthology (CDOUP), 162, 163 ‘Books of my Childhood, The’ Foreword to Britain’s Life-Boats (CDOUP), 68 (CDOUP), 178 ‘Brute, The’ (SS), 85 Foreword to Landscapes of Corsica and Ireland (CDOUP), 165 Cablegram to the Committee for ‘Freya of the Seven Isles’ (TLS), 109, the Polish Government Loan 110, 112, 114, 125 (CDOUP), 157 ‘Friendly Place, A’ (NLL), 119 ‘Censor of Plays, The’ (NLL), 93 ‘Future of Constantinople, The’ ‘Certain Aspects of the Admirable (LE), 119 Inquiry into the Loss of the Titanic’ (NLL), 117 ‘Gaspar Ruiz’ (SS), 78, 84, 131, Chance, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 86, 89, 156, 159 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 108, 109, Gaspar the Strong Man (screenplay), 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 159, 160, 163 116, 120, 121, 123, 124–5, 126, ‘Geography and Some Explorers’ 153, 157 (LE), 178 ‘Character of the Foe, The’ ‘Glance at Two Books, A’ (LE), 74 (Mirror), 79 ‘Grip of the Land, The’ (Mirror), 74 ‘Christmas Day at Sea’ (LE), 176 ‘Guy de Maupassant’ (NLL), 75 ‘Cobwebs and Gossamer’ (Mirror), 79 Collected and Uniform Editions, 29, ‘Happy Wanderer, A’ (NLL), 107 121, 126, 128, 136, 137, 150, ‘Heart of Darkness’ (YOS), 19, 156, 157, 161, 165, 168, 170, 21, 23, 43, 47, 49, 50, 51, 172, 173 52, 54, 158 ‘Confidence’ (NLL), 152 ‘Henry James: An Appreciation’ ‘Congo Diary, The’ (LE), 20–1 (NLL), 78 ‘Cookery’ (LE), 90 ‘Heroic Age, The’ (Mirror), 83 ‘Crime of Partition, The’ (NLL), 150 ‘His War Book’ (LE), 178

‘Dover Patrol, The’ (LE), 164 ‘Idiots, The’ (TU), 35 ‘Duel, The’ (SS), 90 ‘Il Conde’ (SS), 89 ‘In Captivity’ (Mirror), 82 ‘Emblems of Hope’ (Mirror), 74 ‘Informer, The’ (SS), 84, 85, 87 ‘End of the Tether, The’ (YOS), 63, Inheritors, The, 53, 54, 55, 56, 59, 60, 64, 65, 66 61, 165 Index 237

‘Initiation’ (Mirror), 83 Notes on Life and Letters, 155, 156, ‘Inn of the Two Witches: A Find, 159, 161, 162 The’ (WT), 119 ‘Nursery of the Craft, The’ (Mirror), 83 ‘John Galsworthy: An Appreciation’ (LE), 86 ‘Observer in Malaya, An’ (NLL), 45 ‘Ocean Travel’ (LE), 174 ‘Karain’ (TU), 38, 39, 41, 45, 49, 55, One Day More (stage adaptation), 73, 66, 116 78, 81, 82, 101, 141, 183 Kipling article (MS unknown), 44 Outcast of the Islands, An, 17, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 36, 38, 112, ‘Lagoon, The’ (TU), 36, 49, 118 136, 152 ‘Landfalls and Departures’ ‘Outpost of Progress, An’ (TU), 36, (Mirror), 74 38, 40, 50, 56, 68, 85 Last Essays, 183 ‘Outside Literature’ (LE), 172 Laughing Anne (stage adaptation), ‘Overdue and Missing’ (Mirror), 74 160, 161, 183 ‘Legends’ (LE), 182 Pamphlets, Limited Edition, 141 ‘Life Beyond, The’ (NLL), 107 ‘Partner, The’ (WT), 108 Lord Jim, 43, 45–6, 52, 53, 54, 55, Personal Record, A, 14, 98, 99, 100, 56, 57, 58, 59, 64, 67, 82, 117, 101, 102, 104, 105, 108, 111, 121, 140, 143, 153 112, 113, 115, 154 ‘Loss of the Dalgonar, The’ (LE), 167 ‘Planter of Malata, The’ (WT), 43, 123, 124, 125 Mediterranean novel, 80, 89 ‘Poland Revisited’ (NLL), 129, ‘Memorandum on the Scheme 130, 133 for Fitting out a Sailing Ship’ Preface to The Nature of a Crime (LE), 158 (CDOUP), 181 Mirror of the Sea, The, 8, 9, 73, 74, Preface to The Shorter Tales of Joseph 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 82, 83, 85, Conrad (LE), 181 86, 88, 116, 154, 166 ‘Prince Roman’ (TH), 4, 98, 108 ‘My Best Story and Why I Think So’ ‘Princess and the Page, The’, 23 (CDOUP), 85 ‘Protection of Ocean Liners’ (NLL), 127 National Lifeboat Association speech ‘Proust as Creator’ (CDOUP), 173 (CDOUP), 174 Nature of a Crime, The, 86–7, 178, Rescue, The, 17, 33–4, 35, 36, 37, 38, 180, 183 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46–7, Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’, The, 14, 48, 49, 50, 51, 67, 79, 85, 108, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 129, 130, 132, 134, 137, 140, 43, 44 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, Nostromo, 8, 66, 67–8, 69, 70, 71, 72, 154, 156, 157, 158 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 85, 144, ‘Return, The’ (TU), 39, 40, 41 145, 147, 175 Romance, 48, 49, 53, 56, 57, 58, 59, ‘Note on the Polish Problem, A’ 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68, 69, (NLL), 137, 138 70, 71, 153, 165 238 Index

Rover, The, 8, 163, 165, 168, 169, 170, Under Western Eyes, 76, 91, 94–7, 98, 171, 173, 177, 178, 179, 182 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104–5, ‘Rulers of East and West’ (Mirror), 79 106, 108, 109, 111, 113, 117, 142, 157 Secret Agent, The, 26, 85–6, 87, 88, ‘Unlighted Coast, The’ (LE), 140 89, 92, 93, 156 ‘Up-river Book’ (LE), 21 Secret Agent, The (stage adaptation), 153, 154, 155, 156, 158, 163, Victory, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 164, 167, 170, 171, 172 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, ‘Secret Sharer, The’ (TLS), 17, 127, 128, 131, 132, 133, 134, 104, 119 137, 153, 157, 160, 175 Set of Six, A, 94, 97, 98, 113 Victory (stage adaptation), 135, Shadow-Line, The, 17, 131, 132, 133, 138, 141, 142, 144, 147, 148, 134, 135, 140, 141, 143, 157, 165 151, 152 ‘Silence of the Sea, The’ (CDOUP), 103 ‘Warrior’s Soul, The’ (TH), 136 Sisters, The (CDOUP), 32–3, 183 ‘Weight of the Burden, The’ ‘Smile of Fortune, A’ (TLS), 17, (Mirror), 74 106, 108 ‘Well done!’ (NLL), 148 ‘Some Reflections ... on the Loss of Within the Tides, 130, 131, 157 the Titanic’ (NLL), 116 ‘Stephen Crane’ (LE), 173 ‘Youth’ (YOS), 13, 43, 45, 46, 47, 52, ‘Stephen Crane: A Note without 54, 67, 156 Dates’ (NLL), 155 Youth, A Narrative; and Two Other Suspense, 116, 118, 149, 150, 152, Stories, 46, 52, 54, 56, 57, 60, 153, 157, 158, 159, 160, 162, 61, 63, 64, 66, 67, 140, 143 163–4, 165, 167, 171, 172, 173, 176, 177, 183 3. CONRAD’S READING ‘Tale, The’ (TH), 139 Tales of Hearsay, 183 Abraham, J. J., 126 ‘Tales of the Sea’ (NLL), 46 Adeler, Max, 146 Tales of Unrest, 41, 43, 45, 48, 50, Andersen, Hans Christian, 68 72, 152 Anderson, Sir Robert, 87 ‘To-morrow’ (TOS), 57, 62, 63, 73 Andrews, Clarence E., 171 ‘Torrens A Personal Tribute, The’ (LE), 23, 177 Balzac, Honoré de, 41 ‘Tradition’ (NLL), 146 Barrie, J. M., 72 ‘Travel’ (LE), 170 Barruel, Abbé Augustin, 179 ‘Tremolino, The’ (Mirror), 83 Becke, Louis, 36 ‘Turgenev’ (NLL), 140, 142 Beckford, William, 51 ’Twixt Land and Sea, 103, 113, Beerbohm, Max, 95, 118 117, 118 Bendz, Ernst P., 173 ‘Typhoon’ (TOS), 57, 58, 59, 66, 142 Bennett, Arnold, 63, 67, 71, 174, 179 Typhoon and Other Stories, 53, 57, 59, Berenson, Bernard, 166 69, 154 Bible, the, 11 Index 239

Binyon, Laurence, 135 Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 114, 116–17 Björkman, Edwin, 116 Douglas, Norman, 96, 108, 110 Blackwood’s, 54, 60, 62 Dumas the Elder, Alexandre, 69 Blanche, Jacques-Émile, 141 Dyboski, Roman, 178, 180 Bobrowski, Tadeusz, 59, 99 Bone, David, 108, 156, 179 Eastwick, Edward B., 69 Bourges, Elémir, 120 Edridge-Green, F. W., 157 Bourne, George, 107 Eversley, Lord, 132 Bradley, A. C., 126 Eugene Boudin: la vie et l’œuvre ..., 168 Bragdon, Claude, 158 Bridges, Robert, 42 Falconer, Lanoe, 27 Broglie, Duc de, 161 Fayard, Jean, 168 Brooke, Lady Margaret, 125 Flaubert, Gustave, 11, 23, 25, 40 Browning, Robert, 133 Follett, Wilson, 136 Buchan, John, 54 Ford, Ford Madox, 48, 59, 60, 64, Burnaby, Frederick, 13, 171 81, 84, 86, 90, 93, 96, 97, Burton, Richard F., 69 109–110, 114, 125, 131, 134, Byron, Lord, 13 178, 181 France, Anatole, 27–8, 84, 89, 99 Candler, Edmund, 150, 153, 168 Freeman, John, 142 Capes, Harriet M., 136 Freud, Sigmund, 162 Carlyle, Thomas, 13, 145 Fromentin, Eugène, 149 Cervantes, Miguel de, 6 Froude, J. A., 145 Chekhov, Anton, 156, 167 Chesson, W. H., 39 Galsworthy, John, 38, 44, Clifford, Hugh, 45, 52, 53, 64, 68, 59, 60, 62, 65, 74, 85, 89, 110, 151, 180 91, 93, 97, 98, 101, 102, Colvin, Sidney, 133, 144, 153, 166 107, 109, 110, 115, 118, Constant, Benjamin, 149 123, 132, 133, 144, 146, Cooper, James Fenimore, 6, 46, 154, 157, 166, 170, 177, 67, 178 178, 181 Copeau, Jacques, 114, 180 Gardiner, Gordon, 149, Crane, Stephen, 42, 44, 45, 49, 178 Garland, Hamlin, 88, 171 Cumberland, Gerald, 155 Garneray, Ambroise-Louis, 6 Curle, Richard, 119, 123, 125, 156 Garnett, Constance, 40, 42, 54, 55, 64, 116–17, 156, 167 Daudet, Alphonse, 25, 31, 89 Garnett, David, 171, 181 Dawson, Francis Warrington, Garnett, Edward, 29, 38, 49, 54, 66, 108, 116, 117, 123, 136, 89, 101, 109, 110, 114, 125, 166, 168, 169 144, 147, 169 Dawson, Sarah Morgan, 122 Garnett, Martha Jane, 103 Degas: Quatre vingt dix huit Garnett, Olive, 59 reproductions ..., 161 Garnett, Richard, 70 Delafield, E. M., 151 Gautier, Théophile, 90 Dickens, Charles, 3, 6, 38 George, W. L., 145, 148, 154, 156 Dmowski, Roman, 144 Ghéon, Henri, 114 240 Index

Gibbon, Edward, 24, Jesse, F. Tennyson, 172 Gibbon, Perceval, 95, 102, Jung, C. G., 142 112, 114 Gide, André, 111, 114, 125, 154, Keats, Gwendoline (‘Zack’), 54 160, 181 Keats, John, 133 Glasgow, Ellen, 136 Kelsey, Albert, 153 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Kennedy, Admiral Sir William, 61 von, 120 Kingsley, Mary, 50 Goldring, Douglas, 109 Kipling, Rudyard, 44, 54, 161 Goncourt brothers, 145 Kossak-Szczucka, Zofia, 172 Good Reading ..., 42 Krasicki, Bishop Ignacy, 167 Gosse, Edmund, 147 Gourgaud, Gaspard, 162 Laborie, Lanzac de, 162 Graham, Gabriela Cunninghame, Laforgue, Jules, 172 42, 46, 97 Lamartine, Alphonse de, 149 Graham, R. B. Cunninghame, 45, Larbaud, Valery, 124 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 55, 58, Lawson, Henry, 60 62, 67, 72, 80, 90, 102, 116, Le Goffic, Charles, 35 125, 134, 155, 157, 161, 169 Lear, Edward, 68 Grey, Edward, 159 Lemaître, Jules, 92 Grimm brothers, 68 Lenormand, H.-R., 162 Gruyer, Paul, 162 Lesage, Alain-René, 6 Livingstone, David, 6 Harrison, Frederic, 133 Log of a Jack Tar, The, 161 Hastings, B. Macdonald B., Loti, Pierre, 31 139, 142 Lubbock, Basil, 168 Haydon, Benjamin, 145 Lucas, E. V., 98, 149 Hergesheimer, Joseph, 158 Luffmann, C. Bogue, 107 Holland, Bernard, 168 Lute of Jade, The, 125 Hudson, W. H., 74, 76, 78, 111, 154, Lynd, Robert, 153 165, 178 Hueffer, Elsie, 66 McClintock, Sir Leopold, 6 Hueffer, Ford Madox, see Ford, Ford McCullagh, Francis, 181 Madox Maine, Sir Henry, 145 Hugo, Victor, 4, 31, 68 Malinowski, Bronisław, 124 Huneker, J. G., 101, 102, 121, 135 Mariel, Jean, 108 Hunt, Jasper B., 107 Marryat, Frederick, 6, 46 Hunt, Violet, 132 Masbrenier, Jean, 120 Masterman, G. F., 69 Jacobsen, Jens Peter, 168 Maugham, Somerset, 40 James, Henry, 38, 48, 51, 58, 72, 98, Maupassant, Guy de, 27, 28, 50, 66, 100, 113 75, 89, 174 James, Humphrey, 42 Mechnikov, Ilya Illych, 72 James, William, 114 Meldrum, David S., 65 Jean-Aubry, G., 169 Melville, Herman, 90, 154 Jeffery, Walter, 36 Mencken, H. L., 144 Index 241

Meredith, George, 133 Rostand, Edmond, 47 Mérimée, Prosper, 76 Rothenstein, William, 94, 135, Meynell, Alice, 29 143, 161 Mickiewicz, Adam, 1, 3, 5 Rouvroy, Louis de, 156 Mitchell, S. Weir, 43 Russell, Bertrand, 124, 128, 166, 171 Monahan, Michael, 146 Rutherford, Mark, 77 Monkhouse, Allan, 180 Ruyters, André, 121 Moore, Benjamin, 161 Morel, E. D., 72 Saintes, A. E. de, 3 Morley, Christopher, 173, 178 Salmon, Alfred Leslie, 138 Morris, William, 42 Sand, George, 145 Munro, Neil, 48, 60 Sandeman, Christopher, 154 Munthe, Axel, 80 Sanderson, E. L., 37 Sanderson, Helen, 108 Nevinson, Henry, 99 Sassoon, Siegfried, 150 Newbolt, Henry, 83 Scott, Sir Walter, 6 Service, Robert, 145 O’Brien, Frederick, 165 Shakespeare, William, 3, 13, 15 O’Shea, Katharine, 179 Siboutie, François Poumiès Oliphant, Margaret, 42 de la, 179 Oliver, Frederick Scott, 132 Sieroszewski, Wacław, 129 Sims, William Sowden, 161 Páez, Ramon, 69 Słowacki, Juliusz, 3 Park, Mungo, 6 Smet, Joseph de, 114 Pasture, Mrs Henry de la, 109 Soskice, Juliet M., 169 Pater, Walter, 39 Southey, Robert, 83 Pellet, Marcellin, 162 Stauffer, Ruth M., 173 Philby, Hilary St-John Bridger, 182 Stendhal, Henri de, 162 Phillpotts, Eden, 115–6, 142 Stevenson, R. L., 42 Pollard, A. F., 157 Strachey, J. St Loe, 176, 182 Poradowska, Marguerite, 20, 24, 26, Street, Julian, 173, 30, 31, 56, 121 Sutherland, J. G., 169 Potapenko, I. N., 27 Swettenham, Frank, 34 Pound, Ezra, 143, 146 Symons, Arthur, 102, 107, 125, Prest, Thomas, 179 138, 140 Proust, Marcel, 171, 172, 173, 178 Prus, Bolesław, 96, 129 Tennyson, Lord Alfred, 25 Pugh, Edwin, 49 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 6 Thomas, Edward, 111, 123 Rabelais, François, 35 Tinayre, Marcelle, 69 Rémusat, Claire de, 157 Tolstoy, Leo, 64 Retinger, Józef, 119 Tomlinson, H. M., 117, 152 Reynolds, Stephen, 93, 97, 101, 108, Trevelyan, G. M., 126 114, 115, 118 Trollope, Anthony, 19 Rimbaud, Arthur, 47 Turgenev, Ivan, 6, 40, 42, 54, 55 Roché, Louis, 181 Twain, Mark, 19 242 Index

Vale, Charles, 107 education, 3, 5, 6 Valéry, Paul, 173 examinations (marine), 11, 12, Vasari, Giorgio, 145 13–14, 15, 16 Verlaine, Paul, 109, 155 Vigny, Alfred de, 6 homes and lodgings (in England): Visiak, E. H., 180 Aldington, Kent (temporary home), Voltaire, 169 100, 212 Voynich, E. L., 41 Bessborough Gardens (London SW1), 18 Waldo, Harold, 166 Capel House (Orlestone, Kent), Waliszewski, Kazimierz, 74 107, 212–3 Wallace, Alfred Russel, 154 Dynevor Rd (London N16), 11 Walpole, Hugh, 145, 146, 147, 149, Gillingham St (London SW1), 23, 151, 160, 166 29, 34, 36 Ward, Christopher, 179 Ivy Walls Farm (Stanford, Essex), Ward, Herbert, 169 39, 215 Watson, E. L. Grant, 122, 143 Lowestoft lodgings, 10 Wedrowie˛c, 6 Oswalds (Bishopsbourne, Kent), Wellington, Hubert, 177 154, 214 Wells, H. G., 35, 49, 50, 55, 57, 59, Pent Farm (Postling, Kent), 47, 63, 71, 72, 79, 81, 88, 99, 109 48, 214 Wenz, Paul, 153 Sailors’ Home (London E1), 11, Wharton, Edith, 144, 160 12, 14, 213 Winawer, Bruno, 164, 165 Someries (Luton, Beds), 92, Withers, Hartley, 139, 157 100, 215 Wyspian´ski, Stanisław, 129 Spring Grove (Wye, Kent), 152, 154, 215 Zaid, Abu, 51 Victoria Rd (Stanford, Essex), Zangwill,. Israel, 24 36, 215 Zeromski, Stefan, 156, 165 honours and prizes, 15–16, 43, 151, Zola,. Émile, 28 169, 173, 181 Zuk-Skarszewski, Tadeusz, 173 interviews, 38, 61, 69, 112, 118, 125, 143, 160, 165, 172, 175, 176, 182 4. OTHER TOPICS lectures (attended), 6, 137–8, 155 addresses and readings, 155, 174, 175 naturalization, 11, 14, 15, 16, 18 awards and grants, 26, 50, 65, 75–6, nicknames, 8, 10, 18 81, 96, 108, 143 petitions, public letters and contracts (for JC’s works), 32, 40, 44, questionnaires, 48, 68, 78, 93, 57, 59, 69, 83, 104, 105, 120, 103, 107, 119, 136, 148, 154, 125, 126, 142, 149, 159, 165 167, 171 portraits, caricatures and sculptures, dedications (of works to Conrad), 44, 66, 70, 73, 136, 137, 54, 80, 86, 112, 114, 115, 123, 145, 160, 164, 169, 174, 132, 140, 154, 157, 168, 171 175, 179, 180 Index 243

reviews and critical studies theatre, cinema, concert of Conrad (contemporary), and gallery visits, 8, 31, 42, 44, 58, 67, 98, 113, 25, 26, 67, 75, 88, 122, 125, 126, 133–4, 136, 89, 101, 134, 142, 141, 142, 143, 154, 158, 160, 147, 158, 160, 164 163, 169, 173, 176, 179 translations of Conrad’s works, 27, 30, 31, 34, 38, sales-figures, 113, 126, 131, 141, 49, 50, 55, 68, 72, 89, 101, 151, 152, 179 137, 142, 155, 172