Conrad, Joseph

8vo, the dedication copy warmly inscribed by the author to his closest friend John Galsworthy ("Dear Jack's copy. | with love | J.C.") on front free endpaper, original blue smooth cloth lettered in gilt on spine and in light blue on upper cover, collector's box, some spotting and browning, repair to head of spine

John Galsworthy, authorial inscription; Sotheby's (Hodgson's Rooms), 26 April 1979, lot 109

Cagle A10a(1)

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate.
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The dedication copy of Conrad's panoramic epic and masterwork, one of the great early experimental novels of the Modernist period, and a key early imaginative study of post-colonial global capitalism. For John Galsworthy's key role in Conrad's life and literary career, see lot 9.

Nostromo was described by the author as his work with the largest canvas, set as it is in the imaginary South American republic of Costaguana (rather like Columbia), and covering a period of history from the mid-1880s to 1900. The action centres on the various interests involved with the San Tomé silver mine: as Conrad himself remarked, "Silver is the pivot of the moral and material events, affecting the lives of everybody in the tale." A recent commentator has noted that if the story "echoes one work of fiction more than another, it is The Pardoner's Tale, with all the human agencies cancelling out and the treasure emerging as the sinister protagonist of the narrative..." (Kenneth Ligda, "Nostromo", accessed at http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/Nostromo). The work grew from a projected short story into the author's longest novel, and cost him dear: throughout the writing of it he suffered gout, depression and severe financial hardship. Then, once completed, it was misunderstood and unpopular with critics and the reading public. Latterly however, it has been recognized as his finest achievement, combining powerful characterization and astute political analysis of a post-imperial scenario, all told through a versatile "omniscient" narrator conveying the history of Costaguana from a number of different perspectives.  

"I see nothing, I read nothing. It is like a kind of tomb which is also hell where one must write, write, write." (Conrad, on the novel's composition)

"...one of the few mastering visions of our historical moment and our human lot..." (Robert Penn Warren,  introduction to 1951 Random House edition)