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FIRST EDITION
,
AN IMPORTANT LITERARY ASSOCIATION COPY
,
INSCRIBED TO R
.
B
.
CUNNINGHAME
GRAHAM
in black ink on the front free endpaper:“To / R.B. Cunninghame Graham / affectionately
from / the Author.” First issue, with the following points: “any rate” is printed as one word on page
77, line 5; “keep” is missing after “can” and “cure” should be “cured” on page 226, seven lines from
the bottom;“his” is printed low and not aligned with the other words on page 319, last line.
R.B. Cunninghame Graham and Conrad enjoyed a frequent and important correspondence and
Graham’s many years as a traveller and rancher in South America is acknowledged as inspiration for
Conrad’s novel Nostromo, especially so in that Conrad was relatively unfamiliar with the area. “He
[Graham] was variously traveller, cattle-rancher and horse-dealer, fencing master, Liberal M.P., pioneer
socialist, political columnist, essayist, critic, story-writer [...].”Their letters spanned some twenty-five
years with the majority written between 1897 and 1904, during which time Conrad reached full
maturity as a novelist.
“Originally William Blackwood and Conrad had intended Youth, Heart of Darkness and the then
unfinished Lord Jim to appear as one volume. On 12 February 1899 Conrad had written to
Blackwood:‘Re volume of short stories. I wished for some time to ask you whether you would object to
my dedicating the Vol: to R.B. Cunninghame Graham. Strictly speaking it.....is a matter between the
dedicator and the other person, but in this case—considering the imprint of the House and your own
convictions I would prefer to defer to your wishes. I do not dedicate to C. Graham the socialist or to C.
Graham the aristocrat (he is both—you know) but to one of the few men I know—in the full sense of
the word—and knowing cannot but appreciate and respect—abstractedly as human beings. I do not
share his political convictions or even all his ideas of art, but we have enough ideas in common to base
a strong friendship upon. Should you dislike the notion I’ll inscribe the Rescue to him instead of the
Tales’ (Blackburn, pp. 51-2). But when Youth: A Narrative and Two Other Tales appeared in
November 1902, it bore the dedication ‘To My Wife’; and eventually it was the volume Typhoon
which was dedicated to Graham: partly because Typhoon was published by Heinemann, to whom
Conrad was less beholden than to Blackwood, and also, perhaps, because the idea for Typhoon may
partly have been prompted by Graham” (C.T. Watts, Joseph Conrad’s Letters to Cunninghame
Graham, Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 7; 136-37). Cagle A5a;Wise 7.
LOT
68,
continued