Bringing together work composed from 1890 to 1924 the nineteen pieces collected in the posthumously published Last Essays (1926), with the addition of the `Up-river Book' and scattered pieces
by Conrad that Richard Curle excluded from his edition, serve as a primer to Conrd's wide interests and to the varieties of his style.
The Introduction situates these writings in Conrad's career, offers new perspectives on Conrad in the marketplace and as a weiter of occasional prose and traces the contemporary reception of
the volume. The explanatory notes elucidate literary and historical references, identify real-life places and indicate Conrad's main sources. Eight illustrations and four maps enrich this
material. Appendices reprint Curle's introduction to the volume and to "The Congo Diary', and Conrad's prefatory note to the essay on the Torrens as well as material about the loss of the
Dalgonar. Published here for the first time are two rejected draft openings to the Preface to The Shorter Tales of Joseph Conrad, notes for the essay `Travel' and the first draft of `Geography
and some Explorers'. The Essay on the Texts and the Apparatus lay out the history of composition and publication, detail interventions in Conrad's texts by his typists, compositors and editors,
and explain editorial policy.
This edition of Last Essays, established through modern textual scholarship, presents Conrad's Congo notebooks and his essays, prefaces, reviews and other occasional writings in a form more
authoritative than any so far printed.
