Introduction

Summary

SERIALIZED IN 1908–9 in the English Review under the title ‘Some Reminiscences’ and first published in book form in early 1912, A Personal Record is Conrad's only sustained piece of autobiographical writing. Reminiscences are scattered throughout The Mirror of the Sea (1906), and the essay ‘Poland Revisited’ (1915) focusses on his ill-fated journey to Poland during the summer and autumn of 1914. The former, however, is principally concerned with presenting a kaleidoscopic view of life at sea, celebrating maritime traditions, and affirming the sea's centrality to the English imagination. The latter deals with a few months of Conrad's life, while offering backward glances at his childhood and his early experience in the British Merchant Service. Despite Conrad's claim that The Shadow-Line: A Confession (1917) was a ‘sort of autobiography’ (Letters, V, 543), it is patently a work of fiction. The very uniqueness, then, of A Personal Record gives it a special attraction and importance. During Conrad's lifetime, the book proved popular. On its original publication in 1912, it quickly went into a second printing. It was published in separate editions in 1916 and 1919 in England and in 1918 went into a second edition in America before appearing in the collected English and American editions of 1921.