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.

The period covered by the third volume of a projected eight marks the years when Conrad stood at the height of his powers. It was during this time that he completed Nostromo and The Secret Agent. Yet, it was also a time of great personal unhappiness: his plans for leisurely, contemplative work were constantly interrupted by dangerous illnesses in the family, his own bad health, financial worries, and the pleas of editors desperate for copy. Conrad maintained his correspondence with old friends such as Galsworthy, Wells, and Ford, and developed a number of new friendships. This is also the period when Conrad became absorbed in political fiction, reflected in an intriguing series of letters dealing with Poland, the Congo, Latin America, and censorship. As always, the letters to his agent J.B. Pinker provide a detailed--and largely unpublished--account of the writer's monthly and weekly plans and literary commitments.

This penultimate volume of Conrad's collected letters ends soon after his 65th birthday. Over the previous three years, Conrad wrote The Rover, struggled with Suspense, translated The Book of Job (a Polish comedy), collaborated with J. B. Pinker on a cinematic treatment of 'Gaspar Ruiz', and worked by himself on adapting The Secret Agent for the London stage. He saw the publication of The Rescue, Notes on Life and Letters, and the Doubleday/Heinemann collected edition, most of whose volumes had new Author's Notes. Especially in North America, the collected edition strengthened his reputation as the leading English-language novelist of his day. This recognition could not always console him for his worries about his health, his family, and the state of post-war Europe, but he had not lost his sense of irony. These letters, the majority new to scholarship, abound in striking turns of phrase and unexpected insights.