Preparing a scholarly edition of a British novel, written by an expatriate Pole, may seem a little out of place in the Australian Scholarly Editions Centre; but an offer to co-edit Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes given to Paul Eggert by the Editorial Board of the Cambridge Editions of The Works of Joseph Conrad, and my fortunately timed application to study at the Australian Scholarly Editions Centre, provided me with a project that has many editorial challenges not out of place in any centre for scholarly editing.

The textual history of Under Western Eyes poses some difficult problems for the preparation of a scholarly edition. Under Western Eyes was written between December 1907, and January 1910 before it underwent revision during May 1910, and further revision occurred between serial publication and the publication of the first edition in October 1911. Altogether ten states exist, including manuscript, typescript, two serial versions, English and American first and second editions, as well as two collected editions that Conrad may have revised. Problems arise when several Conrad letters are taken into consideration. Conrad's correspondence with his agent, J. B. Pinker, shows his desire to have the English first edition set from his revised pages of the English Review. Several published studies of the textual history of the novel and our preliminary collations show that Conrad's desire was not fulfilled, as there are many variations between the two states other than possible Conradian revision. Conrad's letter to his close friend, John Galsworthy, after the publication of the first edition, creates more problems, appearing to reply to concern over the loss of several scenes in revision. Conrad writes,

You know there are about 30 000 words more than the printed text. Revising while ill in bed I am afraid I have struck out whole pages recklessly. The other day I looked at the MS: 1357pp averaging about 120 words per page. There are passages which should have remained. I wasn't in a fit state to judge them.

Conrad's correspondence provides tantalising options for a critical editor, but the complexity of Conrad's revision makes the choice very difficult. Documenting Conrad's revision throughout composition provides many challenges. Conrad's method of composition saw holograph manuscript regularly sent to a typist, then returned with one or two copies for revision. The extant typescript dates from October 1908, when a copy of those intermediate typescripts was completed. From that date the typescript grew through the same process, becoming layered with several separate revisions, and culminating in Conrad's 'reckless' cuts in May 1910. Behind the large-scale revisions lies subtle and sometimes heavy revision of the typescript. Untangling these several layers is proving to be difficult, leaving much work yet to be done. The Cambridge Edition of The Works of Joseph Conrad has so far produced critical editions of Conrad's first novel Almayer's Folly, and The Secret Agent. The Cambridge Editions offer an eclectic text which is an excellent resource for the study of Conrad's works. But the complexity of Conrad's seriatim method of composition, and his consistent employment of friends and associates to help maintain his output with financial, artistic and emotional sustenance deserves a better representation than a critical edition can provide. This has influenced me to look for other methods of presentation that capture the human and social dynamic of Conrad's composition, focussing on the act of writing, revision, and correction as the text evolves into its published forms. The concurrent preparation of the Cambridge Edition with Paul Eggert, and the development of a separate scholarly edition of part of the novel as my thesis, will challenge the assumptions that both inform editorial methods and, in the process, strengthen the framework of each edition.

Roger Osborne

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Last Updated : 13 January 1999