Joseph Conrad (1847-1924)
Autograph letter signed ('J. Conrad') to [Edward] Garnett, n.p., 13 February [1897]
Six pages, 159 x 100mm, on a bifolium and a singleton. Provenance: James Gilvarry – his sale, Christie's New York, 7 February 1986, lot 173.

On his pleasure at an acknowledgement from Henry James. Conrad expresses his delight at receiving an inscribed copy of James's The Spoils of Poynton (a response to Conrad's having sent him a copy of The Outcast of the Islands the previous year with a laudatory inscription). He praises the book, 'as good as anything of his – almost', comparing it with 'a great sheet of plate glass', but criticising its length and expressing sympathy with 'the man in the street trying to read it ... One could almost see the globular lobes of his brain painfully revolving and crushing, mangling the delicate thing'. He sends Garnett some 30 pages of MS' (presumably for his novella The Children of the Sea). though admitting to feeling 'heartily ashamed of them'; the letter concludes with a description of his wife's fortitude in reading James's novel.

I had this morning a charming surprise in the shape of the "Spoils of Poynton" sent me by H. James with a very characteristic and friendly inscription on the fly leaf. I need not tell you how pleased I am. I have already read the book. It is as good as anything of his – almost – a story of love and wrongheadedness revolving around a houseful of artistic furniture. It's Henry James and nothing but Henry James. The delicacy and tenuity of the thing are amazing. It is like a great sheet of plate glass – you don't know it's there till you run against it. Of course I do not mean to say it is anything as gross as plate glass – It is only as pellucid as clean plate-glass. The only fault I find is its lenght [sic]. It's just a trifle too long.

The critic and editor Edward Garnett (1868-1937) acted as something of a literary mentor to Conrad throughout his career. The exchange of books between Conrad and Henry James was the beginning of a long but somewhat turbulent literary friendship. Published in Letters from Joseph Conrad, 1895-1924, ed. E. Garnett (1928). See lot 111 for a letter by Henry James to Conrad in 1913.