Youth: A Narrative, and Two Other Stories

ISBN: 9781331084631 出版年：2016 页码：407 Joseph Conrad Forgotten Books

It was Francis Grierson, some years ago, in a brief article in the New Age, who first called attention to the very remarkable qualities of a book called The Nigger of the Narcissus, just then published by Heinemann at a shilling. It was a slim, scarlet, easily held book, designed to read in bed, pack in a grip, lend to a friend, or slip in the pocket against a rail journey in the middle of the day, when the morning paper had been read and the evening journals were not yet on the stands. It may have been by design that this article came out just at that moment, for Heinemann was an admirable tactician. Bad literature was abhorrent to him, as may be seen by the books bearing his imprimatur; but he doubtless saw no reason why a man who published fine books should not let it get about, or should refrain from mentioning it in a friendly way. It may be remarked that a number of English publishers at that time were in the habit of issuing books in a manner that can only be described as virtuously surreptitious. They did good by stealth. It would not do to say that any house ever published a book without informing its shipping department, but it amounted to that in the long run. Mr. Heinemann was not that sort of publisher.