Conrad, Joseph

writing about the progress of World War One and related international affairs, with notable content on his distrust of American intentions and intense dislike of President Wilson's rhetoric, also discussing his own writings, the adaptation of Victory for the stage, Sandeman’s work, other literary and dramatic subjects, his health and that of Jessie Conrad, 67 pages, 4to and 8vo, headed stationery of Capel House, Orlestone, Spring Grove, Wye, and Oswalds, Bishopsbourne, all Kent, 28 August 1916 to 21 November 1922, occasional smudges and slight dust staining

Bonham's, 29 June 2004, lot 477

Collected Letters, V, pp.646-47, 680-81; VI, pp. 45-46, 49-50, 67, 124, 288-89; VII, pp. 246, 598-99; IX, pp. 197-99, 204-10, 220-22, 227, 231

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“...I do turn to you to ease my mind on various matters in which I feel I'll be understood by you better than by anyone. Vous êtes mon correspondant très spécial...”

An important correspondence, revealing Conrad's thoughts and fears especially during the later years of World War One. Christopher Sandeman (1882-1951) was a wealthy man – Conrad described him to Pinker as “the only really rich man I know” (29 March 1917) – whose money came from his family's long tradition of port shipping (Sandeman remains to this day one of the best-known brands of port). His money gave him ample opportunities to develop his wide-ranging literary and intellectual interests. He was a playwright and journalist, worked for the Intelligence Corps during World War One, and his interest in botany led him to undertake a number of expeditions collecting orchids in remote parts of South America. 

The majority of these letters date from the second half of World War One, and the progress of the war inevitably looms large in Conrad's letters to Sandeman. He gives his thoughts on strategy (“...This war (like every other) has to be won on land...”), keeps Sandeman informed of his son Borys’s progress in the forces, and also of his own propaganda work (“…I have been at some of our Naval bases on Admiralty's invitation with a view for writing up the work of the R[oyal] N[aval] R[eserve] officers and men … I had a long flight from the Yarmouth Station … Now I have the prospect of being allowed to proceed to sea for a fortnight of so in a special service ship…”). Several of the letters dwell on Poland. Conrad reminds Sandmen “that I left … Poland altogether in 1873 … and since my maternal uncle's death now 25 years ago I haven't exchanged 10 letters with Poland, till quite lately”, but international events and the actions of mutual friends such as Josef Retinger and Prince Michal Woroniecki (both mentioned several times in the letters) in support of Polish independence had turned Conrad’s thoughts back to the land of his birth. He writes in 1916 about his concern that the western allies may feel overly obliged to Russia and so allow her to dominate Poland following the defeat of Germany: “Poland attached to Russia would end by getting absorbed either by massacre or conciliation or by mere economic pressure or from other hopeless aspects of its future. And I submit that with all possible loyalty to our present engagements it is no part of our duty to work gratuitously for the aggrandisement of Russia”. This concern did not mean that Conrad greeted the Russian Revolutions of 1917 with anything other than foreboding, and on 15 September 1917 he wrote in typically harsh terms about the international response to the Russian crisis: “I can't even produce a bitter smile at the Russian antics; and as to the phraseology of the Press, that has ceased to amuse me a long time ago. My store of cynicism is exhausted. The democratic bawlings of our statesmen at Mme Germania would be dull enough, if history were a comic libretto”.

Particularly striking are Conrad's comments on the USA, for in his letters to Sandeman he expresses more fully than in other letters of the period his deep distrust towards President Wilson's idealistic internationalism. Conrad is scornful of Wilson's attempts to mediate peace at the end of 1916, finding in his concluding words in a speech “a phrase of amazing stupidity. So amazing as to be incredible, or is it only American humour … It must be that – for it would be impious to assume that the finest (intellectual) product of “God's Own Country” is – an enormous Ass.” As the war reached its end, Conrad wondered what price the USA would exact on her European allies for her assistance. Always alive to the ironic undercutting of self-righteous rhetoric, Conrad spoke about “Wilson the first – sa majesté très Transatlantique” in terms strikingly similar to Marlow’s opinions of Kurtz:

 “...Never before perhaps in the diplomatic history of the world had utter frankness, obvious straightness, worn such an aspect of impenetrable and calculating craft. Somehow an air of mystery hangs upon the clearest utterances, like a cloud over an open landscape. The force behind these plain words is immense. Immense in every sense. The fact is that the mind uttering these momentous declarations is a non-European mind; and we, old Europeans, with a long and bitter experience behind us of realities and illusions, can't help wondering as to the exact value of words expressing these great intentions...”

Conrad also wrote about his own work to Sandeman, commenting on his latest novels and responding to comments and criticisms (“...My fault is that I haven't made Lena's reticence credible enough – since a mind like yours (after reflexion) remains unconvinced...”). Given Sandeman’s theatrical experience, Conrad wrote to him at length about the dramatization of Victory and took seriously his advice about casting. He also comments about Sandeman’s work for the stage and other dramatists – notably a startling dismissal of Ibsen following a reading of Ghosts (“...I am confirmed in the idea I had for some time that Ibsen is “un vieux singe”. He plays with the subject exactly as I've seen a monkey play with a nut. Still I was well entertained, yet not without a certain contempt for the dowdy “get-up” of that play, its amazing provincialism and its funny air of respectability…”) Conrad also responds in some detail to books sent to him by Sandeman, for example when he is sent a pastiche of Wagner he responds with an admission that “I am afraid you will hardly give credit to my abysmal ignorance of Teutonic mythology. I know absolutely nothing of the legends Wagner a mis en musique … the only Wagnerian production I've seen is his Tristan – 24 years ago in Brussels … And I don't know German”.