Conrad to a Friend: 150 Selected Letters from Joseph Conrad to Richard Curle
Price: $40.00
Hard Cover. New York: Doubleday, Doran, & Company, 1928. First Edition. Near Fine / Dust Jacket Included.
First edition, first printing. Publisher's blue cloth, gilt ship decoration to front board, spine stamped in red, green and gilt, red topstain, and fold-out facsimile letter frontispiece; in its original yellow pictorial dust jacket, with front panel and spine illustrated in red, lettered in black. Near fine book, with a pink mark to spine, mild dimming to gilt on spine, and spine ends slightly wrinkled; good unclipped dust jacket, with light toning to spine, light thumbsoiling to panels and spine, sizeable vertical splits to head and foot of spine, some small closed tears and light chipping to panel edges and spine ends, and some small check marks in pencil to rear panel. With laid-in prospectus and order form for Jean-Aubrey's Joseph Conrad: Life and Letters. Overall, a nice, tight copy. This volume contains 150 letters written by Conrad to his friend and future literary executor, Richard Curle, between 1912 and 1924. Curle writes in his introduction, "These letters, read as a unit, are like a running commentary on the last dozen years of Conrad's life. They reflect his particular kind of humor, his affectionate nature, and his constant concern for his friends." Curle was one of the last people to see Conrad alive - the two met and discussed Conrad's novel Suspense on August 2nd, 1924, and when Conrad experienced chest pains Curle called a doctor. Conrad passed away on the morning of August 3rd. Item #JC091
