Joseph conard's Under Western Eyes was published in London by Methuen & Co. Ltd. on 5 October 1911 and in New York on 19 October 1911 by Harper and Brothers. Versions of the novel had been appearing monthly in serial form in the English Review and the North American Review since December 1910, but extant correspondence suggests that Conrad was most concerned about the book form of the novel, especially Methuen's first English edition. As early as July 1910 Conrad had proclaimed that "The book publication will be from the text as established in the English Review" (Letters, 4, 353), revealing a plan for the transmission of text that centred on revision and correction before the publication of the English Review serial.[1] But on 25 November 1911 he told Warrington Dawson that he was "having a row with Methuen about certain matters connected with the publication of that miserable novel" (Letters, 4, 511). Conrad recalled these matters in March 1913 when he wrote to his agent, James Pinker, about "the beastly muddle with the Western Eyes proofs" (Letters, 5, 188). His disappointment with this "beastly muddle" suggests that Conrad's preparation for the book publication of Under Western Eyes was complicated by "the Western Eyes proofs". Comparison of the two serials and the two first book editions shows that Conrad's preoccupation with English publication subsequently caused the American versions of Under Western Eyes to differ substantially from the English versions. This occurred because he used several sets of English Review pages and proofs to transmit his corrections and revisions. This method of transmission also produced a number of anomalies in the English texts, resulting in the publication of a collection of texts with questionable authority in relation to Joseph Conrad's intentions, final or otherwise. The following discussion of the transmission of Under Western Eyes from typescript to first edition demonstrates how much instability lies behind the printed text familiar to most readers.
