Conrad, Joseph

8vo, first edition, presentation copy inscribed by the author to Henry James on front endpaper ("A Henry James. | Le livre, très cher Maître a au moins | le mérite d être court. Est-il jamais | permis de vanter son oeuvre? Je | ne sais. Mais ceci est un mo- | ment d’intimité. Je ne crains | pas de vous le dire: ce petit | volume composé sans art est | depourvu de toute malice; Vous | n’y trouverez aucune philosophie, | mais, peut-être, quelque sen- | timent des choses lointaines | et des hommes simples | qui ont vécu. | Ces esquisses furent tracées | surtout pour mon plaisir. | Ecrire pour le plaisir est | une dangereuse fantaisie. Je | me la suis passée au risque de | provoquer des grimaces d’ennui | ou des sourires plus blessants | encore. Si dans cette petite pré- | face, écrite pour vous tout seul, | j’en fais la confession c’est que | je suis très sûr de l’amitié dont | vous m’honorez. Je sais que votre | sourire s’éclairera d’une bienveillante | douceur. Votre oeil ami saura | distinguer dans ces pages cette | piété du souvenir qui a guide | la phrase tâtonnante et une | plume toujours rebelle. | JC"), title-page in red and black, 40pp. publisher's catalogue at end dated August 1906, original green cloth lettered in gilt on spine, top edge gilt (Cagle's "a" binding), collector's green cloth chemise and green morocco-backed slipcase, some spotting, head and foot of spine bumped, hinges split, slight indentation to top edge, minor stain to lower cover

Henry James, authorial inscription; Henry James, Jr (1879-1947 and recipient of the 1931 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography); Olivia James

Cagle A11a

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An exceptional Conrad association copy, linking the two great novelists of the Edwardian era and two fellow pioneers of early literary modernism. Conrad association copies with significant literary associations are scarce. No book inscribed by Conrad to Henry James has been offered at auction for at least thirty years.

The Mirror of the Sea is Conrad's only book devoted solely to the sea, as well as his first volume of autobiography, collecting together a number of essays on sea life. T.E. Lawrence proclaimed it Conrad's best book, and, while other writers have not entirely concurred, there is a strong argument that it is his most central.

Frederick R. Karl notes in Joseph Conrad: The Three Lives that "For Conrad, who was still trying out his powers [in the late 1890s], James was a novelist who showed what could be accomplished in fiction, not necessarily a writer who provided any specific guidance... Chiefly, Conrad's obeisance before James... was not the deference of the apprentice before the master in any literary sense... Rather, it was Conrad's way, we can speculate, of dissociating himself from the Grub Street practitioners of the novel by linking himself with the most serious of writers: in a sense, the only competitor each was to have in the novel in that pre-World War I era" (see pp.382-83).

Karl later comments "...[Conrad] sent a  copy of The Mirror of the Sea to Henry James with a long dedicatory note in French. Part of it indicates Conrad's obeisance before James: 'These sketches were set forth chiefly for my own pleasure. To write for pleasure is a dangerous fantasy. I have gone at it with the risk of provoking some grimaces of boredom or some smiles even more wounding. If within this little preface written for you all alone, I make a confession of it, it is that I am very sure of the friendship with which you honor me. I know that your smile will brighten with a welcome sweetness. Your friendly eye will know how to distinguish within these pages this filial devotion to memory which has guided the groping phrase and an always rebellious pen.' [in translation]" (see p.610).

Conrad always wrote to James in French; a sign of respect, and necessitated, as it were, by his constant salutation: "Cher Maitre." His essay on James in Notes on Life and Letters indicates clearly his profound admiration for James of all English writers.  James's remarks on Conrad, in his 1914 essay on new novelists, are less effusive, but only because the remarks are limited to comments on the recently published Chance.

On the half-title is a pencilled presentation from the author's nephew presenting the book to his (first) wife: "To O.J. from H.J. (Jr.) 1928." Olivia Cutting, daughter of the New York attorney and financier, William Bayard Cutting (1850–1912), married Henry James, Jr in 1917. William Bayard's bookplate is loosely inserted although it is doubtful he owned the book.