F I N E B O O K S & M A N U S C R I P T S
An Intimate Presentation Copy Of Conrad’s Most Important Collection
20. Youth CONRAD, Joseph
Blackwood, 1902. First edition. First state with adverts dated 10/02. Original green cloth titled in gilt and black. Presentation copy inscribed on publication by Conrad for his friend and advisor, “To Marguerite Poradowska with the author’s dear love, 20th Nov 1902”. Housed in a custom slipcase. A near fine copy, slightest rubbing to gilt on spine, very minor bumping to corners. [42568] £75,000 A rare presentation copy of Conrad’s most important collection of stories. Conrad and Porodowska were related by her marriage to his cousin and, as Anne Arnold’s 2009 paper on the subject shows, their correspondence reveals Porodowska as a privileged interloc- utor, particularly early in Conrad’s career. She was a prolific author in her own right, adapting Polish authors and writing eight novels of her own. Her relationship with Conrad had a literary and romantic influence on him and his work: “Indisputably, therefore, Marguerite Poradowska had an impact on Conrad... providing, at a crucial moment of his life, the moral support of an intimate friend and the knowledge of a pro- fessional adviser” (Anne Arnold, ‘Marguerite Poradowska as Conrad’s Friend and Adviser’, The Conradian, Spring 2009). Youth comprises three lengthened stories or novellas including one of Conrad’s highest regarded works, ‘Heart of Darkness’, from which T.S. Eliot took the epigraph “Mistah Kurtz. He dead” for his ‘Hollow Men’. Described by Connolly in his Modern Movement as “a masterpiece of sinister deterioration seen by the narrator who is himself profoundly altered by it.” Presentation copies of Youth are rare; only six other examples have appeared at auction since 1979.
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