A sequel to A Portrait in Letters: Correspondence to and about Joseph Conrad (Rodopi, 1995), this volume collects and annotates letters to Joseph Conrad by his family, friends, admirers, and publishers. An indispensable companion to the writer’s own letters, it restores the quality of exchange, interaction, and debate that belongs to a major correspondence. It also leads to a fuller, more rounded picture of Conrad in his personal and professional dealings: both of the mutualities and rituals that underpinned his close friendships and of the terms underlying his mutual disagreements with others. Familiar names are here – Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy, Edward Garnett, Ford Madox Ford, Bertrand Russell, and H. G. Wells – although in largely unfamiliar form, through unpublished or inaccessible materials. Another notable feature of the volume is the newly recovered correspondence relating to the implementation, by Henry Newbolt and William Rothenstein, of the Royal Bounty Fund grant awarded during one of Conrad’s most severe financial crises (1904–06).
An essential resource for the scholar, this vivid collection can also be read with pleasure by the general reader for the light it throws on Conrad the man and writer and the rich context in which he moved.