Landmark Books in All Fields
ItemID: #106223
Cost: $7,500.00

Collected Works

Joseph Conrad

“AMONG THE VERY GREAT NOVELISTS IN THE LANGUAGE”: BEAUTIFUL SET OF CONRAD’S WORKS, SIGNED BY HIM

CONRAD, Joseph. The Collected Works. Garden City: Doubleday, 1925-26. Twenty-three volumes. Octavo, original full cream parchment gilt, top edges gilt, uncut and mostly unopened, inner plain paper dust jackets with outer blue paper dust jackets printed on spines. $7500.

Signed limited "Memorial Edition," number 57 of only 99 sets signed by Conrad, with engraved frontispiece plate in each volume. Sets of the complete works of Conrad are scarce; signed sets are particularly rare. A beautiful set in the original dust jackets.

Conrad did not publish his first novel until the age of 38, but his work earned him a place with the great modernists of the 20th-century, "among the very great novelists in the language" (Drabble, 225). "Conrad's work at its best achieved a synthesis of theme, treatment, and language of a kind without precedent in English literature… Novelty of theme and the piquancy of a non-English origin established him as a romantic, almost as a legendary figure. His stories had excitement of a new kind, and his style, by its very queerness, could allure… powerfully… achieving a perfect equilibrium of pictorial and narrative style" (DNB). This edition was originally intended to be 377 copies, each signed by Conrad. As he died after having only signed 99 sets, the plan was changed and the signed sheets became part of this Memorial Edition. Includes all of his major and minor works, with several posthumously published stories and essays.

Minor chipping to edges of some wrappers only. Fine condition.

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