Conrad, Joseph

an exceptional series, mostly dating from 1893 to 1896, and including an important letter from February 1896 expressing his political beliefs and anxieties about his own future shortly before his marriage, charting the early development of Conrad's writing career, beginning with his retirement from the sea (“…I have left the “Torrens” and am now without occupation…”) and apprehension about the future ("...I have long ago said good-bye to what is commonly called success..."), referring to the publication of Almayer's Folly ("...the provincial press has received my “Folly” with great indulgence and remarkable unanimity of praise … Two London weeklies criticised me severely but on the whole with approval and encouragement...”), the loss in a fire at the printer's of the first edition of the Outcast of the Islands (“…the whole of the first edition, the type, and the stereotyped plates had gone up to the sky in flame and smoke…”), frequently expressing his thanks to Redmayne for his supportive comments about his novels, with several letters written around the time of his marriage to Jessie, discussing her ("...She is a person rather in humble life – not pretty but very intelligent and with great qualities of heart…”), their courtship and the beginning of their life together, often admitting to his anxieties about the future, the letters also discussing mutual friends, Conrad and Jessie Conrad's ill health, their frequent moves, and other domestic matters, the final letter, written some 14 years after the main series, a letter of condolence on the death of a family member, 55 pages, mostly 8vo (one 4to), four with autograph addressed envelopes, 17 Gillingham Street, London, Geneva, Ile-Grande, Lannion, Stanford-le-Hope, Essex, Pent Farm, Hythe, and Capel House, Ashford, 13 October 1893 to 9 November 1912

Sotheby's, London, 19 July 1990, lots 133 and 134

Collected Letters, V, pp.133-34; IX, pp.7, 15-18, 21-26, 32-34, 42-43, 57-59, 65

Condition is described in the main body of the catalogue, where appropriate
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“...There’s nothing so noxious as the conscience, the virtuous conscience of stupid people. Out of pure goodness they avoid facts in the face. They shut their eyes and say: “We are holy” – while they are only blind. There is an unwillingness to face events, a fear of decisive action – which is not prudence but folly…”

Ephraim Brownlow Redmayne (1837-1914) was a well-to-do cotton manufacturer from Lancashire. He had befriended Conrad when he took passage to Adelaide on the Torrens, on which Conrad was serving as first mate. Conrad had, by this time, largely completed the manuscript of Almayer's Folly (which he showed to at least one other passenger on the trip to Adelaide). He was evidently touched by the sympathetic interest of this much older and more established man, and a significant correspondence ensued over the difficult years that followed, when Conrad was taking his first steps in the world of letters.

Conrad's letter of 23 February 1896 stands out as of exceptional importance in this rich correspondence: entwining personal and political anxieties, this must surely stand as one of Conrad's most revealing and significant letters. It was written in the aftermath of the Jameson Raid, in which an armed column from Rhodesia invaded the Boer territory of Transvaal to instigate a rebellion (with the ultimate aim of a British-dominated South African union) but failed and were arrested by the British colonial authorities in the Cape. Conrad was appalled by the squeamishness of the Liberal government and the inanity of political debate in Britain, writing that:

“in the conflict of base motives, of mistaken enthusiasms and of insincere declamations I felt sadly bewildered; knowing not what to believe, what to think – in what men or in what theories to put my trust... People seem to get angry on superficial understanding of great issues, appeased by compromises, that strike me as ridiculously futile"

This failure of debate, for which he blamed "absurd newspapers" and unscrupulous politicians, hid the fact that this was - Conrad believed - a turning point in British imperial history and an indication of weakness that would be clear to "amused rivals" (Conrad would have primarily been thinking of Germany). Redmayne was an interesting choice of correspondent to make this argument, as he was closely connected with the very Liberal politicians whom Conrad believed had suffered a catastrophic failure of nerve:

"the course of events will decide questions of Life or death; a fresh lease of the future on the lines of a glorious past - or a stagnation of life - the arrested development which means practical extinction... the rest of Europe will not believe in our readiness to strike offensively for the purposes of defence. That is the true theory of preservation. You must be ready to strike."

The anxiety that pervades this letter also had a more personal cause, and Conrad follows his gloomy political prognostications by admitting to what he tellingly calls a "little crisis of my own... I am going to get married at the end of March". He provides a rather muted account of his relationship with Jessie ("...It is rather an old story...") and admits his fears for his own future:

“now we are going to join our two humble fortunes and face the heat and dust of the road. She reckless – like all women in love – starts with a light heart. I – much older and having been knocked about – do not feel that boundless trust in the future, which makes life easy. Still I am not much dismayed.”

Conrad's concern was principally whether he would be able to provide for his family. He expresses his acute awareness that "all literary hopes are very often disappointed – and novel writing may bring reputation without money”, and discusses plans to return to the sea, or to move to "some small village in Brittany".