About the lot N° 24
Title : Tales Of Unrest., Period : 1898
Provenance : J.B. Pinker, presentation inscriptionLiterature : Cagle A4c(1)Notes : Conrad's first collection of short stories, including The Lagoon, the
first short story he wrote. All were previously serialized. It was first
published by Scribner's in America on 26 March 1898, and by T. Fisher
Unwin in Britain on 4 April 1898. Cagle notes that it seems likely that
Tales of Unrest was originally printed in a run of 1250 copies of which
number 250 were for the colonial issue. While still drawing upon Malay
material it marks the first stage of Conrad learning to write for
popular magazines: in that book I come nearer to the popular notion of
tale-telling than in any previous work of mine (writing to Unwin,
Collected Letters, II., p.48). It also shows Conrad expanding his
subject matter to include African material as well as developing
personalised narrative voices and relative perspectives.
J.B. PINKER (1863--1922), one of the first literary agents in London,
and one of the most astute and most important agents of the twentieth
century. Born in Scotland Pinker worked on Tilbury Docks before entering
journalism, becoming editor of Pearson's Magazine, and then starting the
Granville House Literary Agency in 1896. Pinker was soon attracting more
authors than his rival A.P. Watt. In 1900, when Conrad joined him, his
clientele included Arnold Bennett, H.G. Wells, Stephen Crane, Henry
James and Ford Madox Ford. Sometimes frowned upon as a mere “tradesman”
Pinker was “superbly attuned to the changing economic climate of
the 1890s publishing market and served the interests of several
'difficult' writers with a skilful blend of shrewdness, tact,
generosity, and long-suffering” (Knowles and Moore). This could
not have been better demonstrated than with his relationship with
Conrad, in which the agent was required to play many roles: friend,
banker, father-figure and general factotum. Pinker could see Conrad's
potential, but in many ways the author was ill-placed to survive the
cut-throat market of the time, committed as he was “to a form of
experimental novel, the unpredictable gestation of which involved an
enormous amount of energy, time, and living costs” (op.cit.) As
Conrad later gratefully acknowledged, Pinker believed in him and backed
him for the long term when many did not, bankrolling him through the
lean years when he had yet to be a commercial success, in the hope of
future payments and royalties. Conrad was forced to split himself
between his long serious projects like Nostromo and Under Western Eyes
and more commercial journalistic material. Tensions were high between
author and agent in these years between 1904 and 1910, with Pinker being
asked for larger and larger advances to fund medical costs, household
bills and overseas trips. The agent's requests for itemisation and
justification were then resented by Conrad, and he sometimes resisted
his agent's attempts to link payments to fixed amounts of delivered
copy. In December 1899 Pinker's patience finally snapped after the
author had been working on Under Western Eyes for two years and then
broke off, against his agent's wishes, to write for the English Review.
Pinker threatened to cut off all funds, his author retaliated by
threatening to throw the manuscript into the fire (see lot 80). After an
explosive row the two did not speak for two years. After the dramatic
upturn in Conrad's popularity and finances after 1914 the author could
finally begin to settle his debts, and latterly the two men met weekly,
spending weekends at each other's homes, sharing holidays and even
collaborating on a screenplay. Conrad later wrote: “those books
which, people say, are an asset of English Literature owe their
existence to Mr Pinker as much as to me. For 15 years of my writing life
he has seen me through periods of unproductiveness[,] through
illnesses[,] through all sorts of troubles...” (Collected Letters,
V, p.619). Conrad was deeply affected by his agent's sudden death in New
York in 1922.Sotheby's, auctioneer, London, UK
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Sale title : The Joseph Conrad Collection from the Library of the late Stanley J. Seeger - Part I
Sale date : 10 Jul 2013
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Sale Reference : Live Sale
