Joseph Conrad's letters to R. B. Cunninghame Graham

About this book

Joseph Conrad's friendship with R. B. Cunninghame Graham was stimulating and in many ways paradoxical. Cunninghame Graham was a remarkable figure - a Scottish aristocrat who lived variously as a South American cowboy, a fencing master, a socialist Member of Parliament and a highly respected writer of travel, histories and short stories. His political beliefs, to which he was deeply and passionately committed, contrasted sharply with Conrad's pessimistic conservatism. They became friends in 1897, when Cunninghame Graham first wrote a letter of admiration to Conrad, and they remained friends until Conrad's death in 1924. The letters to Cunninghame Graham are the most illuminating sequence of letters from Conrad to any of his correspondents. He struggles to define his philosophical and political beliefs in relation to Graham's radical and provocative opinions. The letters also provide comments on Conrad's work, notably The Nigger of the 'Narcissus', Heart of Darkness, Nostromo and The Secret Agent, and show how Graham became a central figure in Conrad's life and helped to sustain him in some of his most strenuous literary struggles.