The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad

This is the fourth of eight volumes comprising all the surviving letters of Joseph Conrad. Conrad spent half the period of Volume Four writing Under Western Eyes and the other half recovering from the ensuing mental and physical breakdown. During the early months of 1908, the short story 'Razumov' began growing into a novel that embodied Conrad's appalled fascination with Russian politics, his misgivings about language, and his acute sense of loneliness. After the completion of the novel in 1910 and a vehement quarrel with J. B. Pinker, his agent, Conrad suffered a breakdown whose effects lingered for many months. By the spring of 1911, however, he was able to resume the long-delayed Chance. The tale of these years emerges vividly from the correspondence. Of special interest are frank critiques of John Galsworthy's work, manoeuvrings around the new and distinguished English Review, an indignant falling out with Ford Madox Ford, mercurial transactions with Pinker, enlightening accounts of writing in progress (The Secret Sharer and A Personal Record as well as the two novels), reactions to the tumultuous politics of the day, anecdotes about John and Borys Conrad, and evidence of new friendships with American and French writers, among them Andre Gide.