Conrad, Joseph (1902) ‘Youth’, UK first edition association copy inscribed by the author – ‘Heart of Darkness’

Joseph Conrad (1902) ‘Youth‘, UK first edition, first printing, published by William Blackwood and Sons. Inscribed by the author just a week after publication to Harriet Capes on the front free endpaper: “To | Miss H. Capes | with the Author’s kind regards. | 20 Nov. 1902”. Housed in a solander case for protection. Youth was published on 13 November 1902. This is one of a handful (probably six) author’s copies and features the earliest known inscription. The first print run of Youth was had only 3,150 copies.

Provenance: Harriet Capes was a children’s book writer and translator. She and her brother Bernard Capes, who was also a popular Victorian writer in his time, were friends with Conrad. The book bears the authorial inscription and Capes’s bookplate. We can trace the book’s sale history to Christie’s New York, 8 October 1991, lot 51; and Sotheby’s, 15 July 2014, lot 229.

Condition: a near fine copy with light shelf wear only as shown.

Youth (1902) collates three short pieces of fiction previously published in magazine format for the first time in book format: Youth; The End of the Tether; and the most famous piece Heart of Darkness.

Joseph Conrad, or Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, created many masterpieces of modern English literature which have become world literature and are studied in schools and for English degrees. Heart of Darkness is probably the piece that stands head and shoulders above everything else, a remarkable achievement for somebody to whom English was only the third language after his native Polish and first foreign language French.