- 311
Conrad, Joseph
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
bidding is closed
Description
- Conrad, Joseph
- The Shadow Line. A Confession. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1917
- paper
8vo, first American edition, second printing, presentation copy inscribed by the author ("B. Macdonald Hastings from Joseph Conrad. Oct. 1917") on the first blank, and containing his corrections to the text on eight pages, blue-green limp leather lettered in gilt on spine and with design on upper cover, light fading to spine, slight rubbing to extremities
Literature
Cagle A21b(2)
Condition
Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
Catalogue Note
Volumes bearing corrections by Conrad are of great rarity. Here the corrections - found on pages 3, 61, 85, 107, 143, 171, 187 and 192 - include the occasional change of word or phrase. Conrad's correspondence reveals that the author was particularly exercised about the misprints in the first American edition of The Shadow Line. In an undated letter to his agent J.B. Pinker, Conrad wrote: "Aren't the misprints in Am. Edition exasperating! I didn't like to worry you with it before but since you feel like this will you my dear fellow arrange (if at all possible) that the proofs that go to the US (for setting up) are the 'revise' English proofs...The S. Line has some horrible misprints and was obviously set up from first proofs" (see Cagle, p.244).
Conrad's dedicatee was the essayist and dramatist Basil Macdonald Hastings (1881-1928). An officer in the Royal Flying Corps in the first war, he was the editor of its monthly paper, the Fledgling, in which Conrad's essay 'Flight' appeared in 1917. In 1919, Hastings's adaptation of Victory was staged at the Globe Theatre in London.