WITH the possible exception of Mr. Henry James, there is no living
writer of fiction in English whom it behooves the critic to approach
with more modesty and self-mistrust than Joseph Conrad. There is
no other writer of similar magnitude whose treatment in the past has
been so inadequate, so prejudiced, so blindly narrow and one-sided.
From the time when one of his earliest book notices bore the
caption, "A Puzzle for Reviewers," his detractors have never
become tired of insisting that he does not know how to construct a
story; and his admirers have expended their energies in explaining
and apologising for him—whereas, as a matter of fact, he needs
neither apology nor explanation, but merely a far heartier
recognition than he has yet received. The attitude of criticism
toward him has not seriously troubled Mr. Conrad. As he himself
writes, in A Personal Record—a unique human document,
which is just appearing, and from which it will be profitable to draw
freely in this article—"fifteen years of unbroken silence before
praise or blame testify sufficiently to my respect for criticism, that
fine flower of personal expression in the garden of letters." But,
though the author himself can afford to be tolerant of
miscomprehension and undervaluation, the serious student of
modern tendencies in fiction cannot afford to overlook the fact that
Conrad is one of the very few who have added something absolutely
new to the art and the technique of his vocation.
