'The "Impenitent Thief" has been read more than once. I've read it several times alone and I've read it aloud to my wife. Every word has found a home.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'The "Bristol Fashion" business is excellently well put. You seem to know a lot about every part of the world and what's more you can say what you know in a most individual way.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'The Guide book simply magnificent [italics] Everlastingly good!. I've read it last night having only then returned home.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'This morning I had the "Aurora" from Smithers, No.2 of the 500 copies. C'est tout simplement magnifique yet I do not exactly perceive what on earth they have been making a fuss about.[...] I notice variations in the text as I've read it in the typewritten copy.This seems the most finished piece of work you have ever done.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book, see additional comments
'I return the pages "To Wayfaring Men". I read them before I read your letter and have been deeply touched.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Manuscript: Sheet, Presumably typewritten pages
' "Higginson's Dream" is super-excellent. It is much too good to remind me of any of my work, but I am immensely flattered that you discern some points of similitude. Of course I am in complete sympathy with the point of view. For the same accomplishment in expression I can never hope--and Robert [Cunninghame Grahame] is too strong an individuality [sic] to be influenced by anyone's writing. He desired me to correct the proofs but the "Sat. Rev" people did not send me the proofs.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'Your photograph came yesterday (It's good!) and the book ["Mogreb-el-Acksa"] arrived by this evening's post. I dropped everything--as you may imagine and rushed at it paper knife in hand. It is with great difficulty I interrupt my reading at the 100th page -- and I interrupt it only to write to you.
A man staying here has been reading over my shoulder; for we share our best with the stranger within our tent. No thirsty men drank water as we have been drinking in, swallowing, tasting, blessing, enjoying, gurgling, choking over, absorbing, your thought, your phrases, your irony [...Then follows ten lines of enthusiastic praise for the book.]
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Just a word or two about Robert's book. It is a glorious performance. Much as we expected of him. [...] Nothing approaching it has appeared since Burton's "Mecca" ["Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah" 1855] [...] The Journey in Morocco is a work of art, a book of travel written like this is no longer a book of travel--it is a creative work.[...] The book pulled at my very heart strings.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Today, from your kindness, I received the "Chronicle" with Robert's [Cunninghame Graham] letter. C'est bien ça -- c'est bien lui!' [Its good, that-- it's really him!]
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Newspaper
'The thing ["A Paheka"] in "West.Gaz." is excellent, excellent.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'I hold "Ipané". Hoch! Hurra! Vivat! May you live! And now I know I am virtuous because I read and had no pang of jealousy. There are things in that volume that are like magic and though space and through the distance of regretted years convey to one the actual feeling, the sights, the sounds, the thoughts; one steps on the earth, breathes the air and has the sensation of your past. I know of course every sketch; what was almost a surprise was the extraordinarily good convincing effect of the whole. [...] I have read it already three times.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'[...] but now since I've received the "Sat. Review" I've something to write about. The "German Tramp" is not only excellent[...] but it is something more. Of your short pieces I don't know but this this is the one I like best. The execution has a vigour-the right touch-- and an ease that delight me.'
Hence follows around ten lines of appreciative criticism including a reference to two other stories published in the Saturday Review in 1899.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'But as to "Buta" it is altogether and fundamentally good, good in matter--that's of course--but good wonderfully good in form and especially in expression.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'I've read "Cruz Alta" four days ago. c'est tout simplement magnifique. I know most of the sketches, in fact nearly all, except "Cruz Alta" itself.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I am altogether under the charm of that book ["A Vanished Arcadia"] in accord with its spirit and full of admiration for its expression.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I feel so dull and muddle-headed that I daren't even attempt to give you now an idea of the effect the little volume ["Success"] had produced on me.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I have been reading again the "[A] Vanished Arcadia" - from the dedication, so full of charm, to the last paragraph with its ironic aside about the writers of books "proposing something and concluding nothing" - and its exquisite last lines [...].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Your Saturday Review fling is first rate. Nothing I liked more since the gold-fish carrier story'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Serial / periodical
'Next to tell you that "H.[Hernando] de Soto" is most exquisitely excellent: your very mark and spirit upon a subject that only you can do justice to-with your wonderful English and your sympathetic insight into the souls of the Conquistadores.' Thence follows half a page of praise.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'This moment I receive "Progress", or rather the moment (last night) occurred favorably to let me read before I sat down to write. Nothing in my writing life [...] has give mre a greater pleasure, a deeper satisfaction of innocent vanity [...] than the dedication of the book so full of admirable things, from the wonderful preface to the slightest of the sketches between the covers.' Hence follow nine more lines of unqualified praise.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I've read your book ["His People"] with the usual delight and more than the usual admiration.[...] Three times I've gone through your pages so vigorous, so personal and so exquisite. What a "Return of the Native" you have given us! "His People" is a wonderful piece of description and an amazing piece of analysis.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Its really good of you to have sent "Faith". Your magic never grows less; each of your prefaces is a gem and my enthusiasm is roused always to the highest pitch by your amazing prose. I have already read (the book arrived but two hours ago) "The Idealist" and "The Saint". Admirable in conception and feeling are these two sketches.[...] This afternoon I shall sit down with the book and forget my miseries in the delight of your art so strong and human.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'[...] the volume ["Charity"] which on my first visit to London in many months I carried off home. From the first word of the wonderful preface to the last short sketch of the Pampa as it was, it has been one huge delight. Of course some of these stories--gems--I've read (The incomparable "Aurora" is a long time ago first) but the cumulative effect is magnificent in its pictorial force and emotional power.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'That's why [an attack of gout] I did not write to thank you for your book ["A Hatchment"] (and the Ranee's) ["My Life in Sarawak"] as soon as I ought to have done. Upon my word it's a marvellous volume [...]. The Ranee's book is delightfully ladylike but her sentiment for the land and the people is so obviously genuine that all her sins of omission shall be forgiven her.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
' I've just finished "B[ernal] Diaz". The terminal pages of the preface are just lovely with their irresistable reference to the tempi passati. As to the book itself no personal friend of the old Conquistador could have put it together with greater skill and more tender care.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I am just fresh from the second reading of your vol ["Brought Forward"]'.
Hence follow twelve lines of admiring comment.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Ever so many thanks too for the "Life and Miracles" which I have just read for the second time.There is no one but you to render so poignantly the pathetic and desperate effects of human credulity. It is a marvellous piece of sustained narrative and of intensely personal prose.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'What to me [...] seems most wonderful in the "Cartagena" book is its inextinguishable vitality, the unchanged strength of feeling, steadfastness of sympathies and force of expresssion. I turned the pages with unfailing delight [...].
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I would have written to you before about my delight in "The Conquest of Granada" if it had not been for the beastly swollen wrist which prevented me from holding the pen.'
[Hence follow eight lines of praise.]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'At the foot of the bed was an oak "library table" [...]. There were several piles of books on it, W. W. Jacobs for light reading, de Maupassant, Flaubert, Galsworthy, Cunninghame Graham, various periodicals, and a book, which has always been a mystery to me, "Out of the Hurly Burly" by Max Ad[e]ler. In the window stood an arm chair of cherry wood, lacquered black, on which my father often sat to read for half an hour or so before "turning in".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
