"This is the second of the projected eight-volume edition comprising all the surviving letters of Joseph Conrad. Once completed the edition will have assembled over 3,500 letters, one third of them as yet unpublished and many others only published before in inaccurate versions. The period covered by this volume, 1898-1902, was one of considerable achievement and anxiety for Conrad. The birth of his first child, the death of Stephen Crane, the murder of a friend's son, an encounter with an early X-ray machine, imperial wars in Cuba and South Africa - these events forced Conrad to face the problems of identity in terms of family, nation, history, and the cosmic order. This is also the period of 'Youth', 'Amy Foster', 'Typhoon', Lord Jim, and 'Heart of Darkness'. Often funny, always thoughtful, full of verbal energy even in the toils of severe depression, the letters in Volume Two present Conrad at a crucial though vulnerable moment of his life and literary career."--Publisher's description of v. 2

The standard autorised edition now complete and available as a nine-volume set.

Reproduction of the original: Notes on Life and Letters by Joseph Conrad

A sequel to A Portrait in Letters: Correspondence to and about Joseph Conrad (Rodopi, 1995), this volume collects and annotates letters to Joseph Conrad by his family, friends, admirers, and publishers. An indispensable companion to the writer's own letters, it restores the quality of exchange, interaction, and debate that belongs to a major correspondence. It also leads to a fuller, more rounded picture of Conrad in his personal and professional dealings: both of the mutualities and rituals that underpinned his close friendships and of the terms underlying his mutual disagreements with others. Familiar names are here – Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy, Edward Garnett, Ford Madox Ford, Bertrand Russell, and H. G. Wells – although in largely unfamiliar form, through unpublished or inaccessible materials. Another notable feature of the volume is the newly recovered correspondence relating to the implementation, by Henry Newbolt and William Rothenstein, of the Royal Bounty Fund grant awarded during one of Conrad's most severe financial crises (1904–06). An essential resource for the scholar, this vivid collection can also be read with pleasure by the general reader for the light it throws on Conrad the man and writer and the rich context in which he moved.

The first of a projected eight-volume edition of all the surviving letters of Joseph Conrad. Volume One opens with a child, not yet four, writing to comfort his imprisoned father and closes with an author, exile, and master mariner just turned forty.