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Notes
See Walter E. Smith, Joseph Conrad: A Bibliographical Catalogue of his Major First Editions with Facsimiles of Several Title Pages ([San Francisco], 1979), pp. 114-115 for a ranking of "comparative scarcities." Smith ranks Some Reminiscences, Tales of Unrest, A Personal Record (American edition), and the co-authored The Inheritors as more scarce than copies of Under Western Eyes.
T. G. Ehrsam, A Bibliography of Joseph Conrad (1969), p. 307 notes the rapid sale of The Shadow-Line. American sales of Under Western Eyes were disappointing. Harper & Brothers sold 1,976 copies in 1911, 737 in 1912, and did not sell out the first edition of 4,000 copies until 1917—an average of only 377 copies per year. Harpers' second printing of 1,000 copies lasted from March 1917 until 1924 when the book was dropped from the publishing list. This information was supplied by William R. Cagle from the early draft of a "Bibliography of Joseph Conrad," pp. 151-152.
These and subsequent figures are taken from the Methuen MSS, 1892-1944, Stock ledgers of the publishing records, Volumes 4-7 and 9, cited with permission of the Lilly Library, Indiana University, which acquired the records in 1968. Entries for Under Western Eyes appear in Volumes 4:199, 5:259, 6:352, 7:320, and 9:55. The entries note such things as the number of copies ordered, the number of copies bound, the amount of quire stock, the orders for wrappers, and occasionally indicate dates concerning moulds, stereotype plates, and blocks. The records, though, are incomplete. W. R. Cagle used the Methuen records concerning the first edition and its impressions in his bibliography, pp. 149-150, but erred in calling the second edition "a fourth printing" and Volume X of the Heinemann Collected the "second English edition." The Heinemann, the most restyled of all the editions of the novel, is actually the third English edition.
In A New Introduction to Bibliography (1972), p. 317, Philip Gaskell uses Methuen's Winnie-the-Pooh (twenty-seven impressions between 1926 and 1941) as an example of a publisher's misleading use of "edition" for "impression."
Stock ledger 4:199 indicates that 1,306 copies were bound between 7 October 1911 and 3 January 1912. Were it possible to determine whether the entries in the "Received from Binders" columns run across the page or down the page, one could determine the exact number of the later impressions; however, there are too many inconsistencies in the entries for this to be done.
See Conrad to J. B. Pinker, 2 November 1911, Berg Collection, quoted with permission of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, and the Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. Though Conrad may have seen such an advertisement, the third impression clearly did not materialize until July 1915.
Quoted with permission of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin, Carlton Lake Collection. The inscription is dated "Nov 1911" and appears in a first edition, first impression copy. Carlton Lake obtained the book from the estate of Sisley Huddleston. Mrs. Huddleston, in old age, told Lake that the book had been given to Sisley Huddleston by E.D.Y. She could not remember E.D.Y.'s name but recalled that he was a prominent English literary journalist and friend. I wish to thank Cathy Henderson of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center for supplying the information about the provenance of the copy.
Methuen to Pinker, quoted with permission of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, and the Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
Extant figures are not available for the impressions of February 1923, September 1924, or January 1925, but they may be assumed to range between 1,000 and 5,000 since the 1,000 copy October 1922 impression needed replenishing by February 1923, and the sixth and seventh impressions were necessary to meet demand following the 5,000 copy May 1924 impressions. Conrad's death 3 August 1924 probably helped spur sales through 1925 and 1926.
There are two "Sixth Editions," the fourth impression of the First Edition and the third impression of the Second Edition.
The copyright page of the "Ninth Edition" cites April 1924 as the date of publication for the fifth impression.
The "Fifth" and "Seventh" editions were collated against the first impression of the first edition, and the "Fifth," "Seventh," and "Eleventh" were machine collated against one another. Collation revealed no variants within the second edition impressions other than plate damage such as can be expected from large runs. The first edition is abbreviated M. Stock ledger 7:320 indicates that the plates were recast 16 October 1926.
Brighton Rock (New York, 1938), p. 91. "Wide boy" also appears in the English first (1938), Penguin (1943), Uniform (1947) and Collected (1975) editions. For a discussion of the full textual history of this novel, see my "'I Try to be Accurate': The Text of Greene's Brighton Rock," forthcoming in the inaugural issue of The Graham Greene Annual Review. The definition cited is that of Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of the Underworld (1950), p. 772. Mary Renault's The Charioteer (1959), contains another example of the somewhat rare usage: "Toto Phelps and Bunny have been honeymooning for two full weeks now; anyone could have told him Toto's one to get very nasty if he's two-timed, but all these wide boys get swelled head" (p. 373, italics added).
The plates were undoubtedly melted down during the wartime shortages of lead. It seems fairly certain, though, that the moulds were not destroyed, hence making possible the three further impressions of 1943, 1946, and 1948. An alternative explanation would have Methuen maintaining "mother plates" (see Gaskell, pp. 204-205).
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