Conrad Letters, II

30:3, Reviews are an astounding sixty-two authors represented here, many of them with very slender selections); nevertheless, Fletcher has provided us with an intriguing glimpse that will inevitably affect our perception of the period. Karl Beckson ____________________________________Brooklyn College, CUNY___________ CONRAD LETTERS, H Frederick R. Karl and Laurence Davies, eds. The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad. Volume Π: 1898-1902. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. $44.50. The first volume of the Cambridge Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad (published in 1983) has clearly established both the sterling worth and the indispensibility to scholar and general reader alike of the Frederick Karl-Laurence Davies edition of the Conrad letters. Volume II, covering the years 1898-1902, confirms the accolades of the reviewers of the first volume, and complements the record of painstaking and meticulous scholarship that has been central to the more than quarter century that Karl and Davies have devoted to collecting the letters. Additional good news for the serious student of Conrad is that the edition is gathering speed in publication, because the third volume is scheduled to appear in England in December, 1987. Perhaps the only complaint of those anxious to examine the more than 3,500 extant letters with the assurance and ease that comes only with an authoritative edition—and, in the case of the Cambridge Letters, with the bonus of handsome craftsmanship in book design and discriminating annotations—is that it has taken so long to appear. Anyone who has studied the incomplete records of Conrad holdings, however, will perhaps wonder not so much that the collected letters are taking so long to compile and edit, but that, relatively, so much has been done so thoroughly. This is true especially given the various ways that letters can get lost to cataloguers as they are either forgotten about, or circulate among acquaintances , or are dispersed at auctions, or are passed to new generations of owners who might be unaware of importance for scholarly use, however aware they might be of commercial value. A chance meeting with Laurence Davies recently at the New York Public Library's Berg Collection, a major holder of Conrad letters, brought this to mind. We exchanged a few pleasant horror tales about elusive Conrad materials, and noted the efforts of others involved in Conrad projects who have sought primary Conrad documents—most notably, perhaps, Donald Rude, whose tenacity in locating Conrad's pre-publication texts and in expanding the Texas Tech University Library's Conrad archives is becoming legendary among the editors of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Conrad. In the search for completeness in the collection of letters, as in the compiling of bibliographical records and finding other primary materials, the joys of making discoveries are often tempered by the haunting suspicion that additional uncatalogued materials exist in unknown places. The difficulties of being 343 30:3, Reviews certain about the completeness of the Conrad record would test the patience of Browning's grammarian. Thanks to the efforts of Karl and Davies, and to others such as Donald Rude and William Cagle, who have worked on various aspects of the Conrad bibliographical record, our knowledge of Conrad materials is much more complete than might reasonably be expected. The five years covered in Volume II are central to the emergence of Conrad as respected writer. Fresh from the successful appearance of The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' at the end of 1897, Conrad wrote "Youth," "Heart of Darkness," "Typhoon," and Lord Jim between 1898-1902. In addition, Borys was bom; Conrad moved to Pent Farm and expanded his contacts with Henry James, H. G. Wells, and Ford Madox Ford; and, among other things, he assisted Stephen Crane, whom he had first met in October 1897, to get funds so that he could leave England to become a war reporter. New correspondents in Volume II include an expanding number of business contacts: J. B. Pinker and C. K. Shorter, along with continuing correspondence with S. S. Pawling, William Blackwood, Fisher Unwin, and David Meldrum. Also introduced are Conrad's first extant letters to Arnold Bennett and John Galsworthy. Illustrative of the completeness of the Letters is the correspondence with Galsworthy, whom Conrad...