Conrad, Joseph

comprising about half the text (c.14,000 words), almost certainly typed by Jessie Conrad and with autograph revisions and corrections to all but one page, including substantial additional passages and cancellations as well as changes and corrections to individual words, text on rectos only, revisions mostly in black ink with some in pencil and some cancellations in red crayon, 59 pages, small post 4to (230 x 180mm, unwatermarked), somewhat irregular pagination running pp.1-61 (one page numbered "pp. 28. 29 & 30", pages numbers 31 and 32 given twice, with one unnumbered page following the first p.32), pagination added by hand to p.30 and thereafter typed, with a note in another hand on the first page ("First 7 pages wanting | Narrative Proper"), 1901, loose leaves housed in pairs in 30 VPD sheet protectors, in a folding box and brown half morocco gilt slipcase, lacking the first c.800 words of the story, three pages missing internally (pp. 5, 7, 39), and lacking the final c.15,000 words of the story (of c.30,000 words), each leaf with a horizontal fold, c.20 leaves strengthened or with tape repairs to fold-tears incomplete, pin holes at top left corners

Books, Manuscripts and Corrected Typescript ... of the late Joseph Conrad, Sold by Order of Mrs Conrad and the Executors, Hodgson's, 13 March 1925, lot 152, £21, to L.M. Wilson; L.M. Wilson Catalogue no. 1 (Paris, 1925); Sotheby's, 1 March 1926, lot 422, £37, Maggs; Maggs Catalogue no. 487, no. 555; Jane Engelhard, Cragwood booklabel; her sale, Christie's, New York, 27 October 1995, lot 22, $30,000 

Moore 60 (where incorrectly located at Texas Tech University)

Condition is described in the main body of the catalogue, where appropriate
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

The partial typescript of one of Conrad's most powerful short stories. Like Heart of Darkness, the story begins on the Thames downstream from London, as an unnamed sea captain recalls "an absurd episode in my life", when he earned the antagonism of Falk, a tugboat captain in Bangkok. The narrator discovers that Falk believes him to be a rival for the love of a girl and the narrator - who needs Falk's assistance to set sail - disabuses him and offers to act as an intermediary between Falk and the girl. He is then a witness to Falk's confession that "I have eaten man": starving on a stranded ship, he had killed and eaten other members of the crew to survive. Falk acted out of a need to survive, and Conrad himself commented (albeit somewhat facetiously) that "his behaviour, if cannibalistic, is extremely nice throughout - or at any rate perfectly straightforward" (letter to William Blackwood, 7 November 1901). Indeed Conrad was clear that cannibalism itself was not his primary subject, writing illuminatingly in his 1919 preface Typhoon and Other Stories that:

"I may safely say that Falk is absolutely true to my experience of certain straightforward characters, combining a perfectly natural ruthlessness with a certain amount of moral delicacy. Falk obeys the law of self-preservation without the slightest misgivings as to his right, but as a crucial turn of that ruthlessly preserved life he will not condescend to dodge the truth. As he is presented as sensitive enough to be affected permanently by a certain unusual experience, that experience had to be set by me before the reader vividly; but it is not the subject of the tale." (Author's Preface, 1919, p.x)

When Conrad wrote to Pinker on 8 October 1900 outlining the plot of Typhoon, he also mentioned that he had the idea for a second story, "shorter and more horrible", and he Conrad began 'Falk' in mid-January 1901, immediately after completing Typhoon (for which see lot 37). It was composed in a similar manner: a typescript was prepared, presumably by Jessie, from Conrad's manuscript and that typescript was then corrected by Conrad. Conrad enclosed the bulk of the typescript with an undated letter to Pinker, probably written in the second half of May, explaining that the last pages had not been typed and corrected, and those last pages no doubt followed some days later. The current typescript is undoubtedly that provided to Pinker. Conrad requested a copy of Pinker's own typescript (produced from the corrected typescript), and on 7 June 1901 returned this to him in duplicate, pronouncing the story ready for the press. However, Pinker was unable to place the story for periodical publication, no doubt because of the tale's subject matter, so it was not published until it appeared as the second story in Typhoon and other Stories (1903).

Although the manuscript of "Falk" was sold to Quinn (and is now at Yale), this incomplete typescript remained with Conrad. In 1919 he found these "60 small pages of type, corrected, altered, and in many places altogether rewritten" and offered them to Quinn, commenting that "I myself was surprised to see what a lot of work I put into that story" (Conrad to Quinn, 29 September 1919, Collected Letters, VI, p.498). The typescript never reached Quinn, despite Conrad's offer to send it to him "without of course any question of payment arising", and it was instead sold by Jessie after Conrad's death.