CONRAD AND DAVID BONE: SOME UNPUBLISHED LETTERS

These memorable words were spoken by Conrad during his 1923 trip to America on board the Tuscania, invited to sail in that liner by her commander, David Bone, a gifted seaman-author (1874-1959) whom Conrad had known and intermittently corresponded with for some years. Earlier in that year David Bone had found out from F.N. Doubleday that there was some chance of Conrad being persuaded to visit America, and this prompted Bone to remind Conrad that he had a standing invitation to use the Tuscania. That invitation was finally accepted by Conrad, and it led to the strengthening of a link between the two men which had first been made in 1910. During the 1920s Conrad's friendship also embraced two of Bone's talented brothers Sir Muirhead (1876-1953), the well-known artist, and James (1872-1962), London editor of the Manchester Guardian. Many of these details are included in David Bone's little-known autobiography, Landfall at Sunset: The Life of a Contented Sailor (1955), which also reproduces tantalizing extracts from letters sent to him by Conrad. Happily, this small collection of holograph letters has now been located in Edinburgh, where it is in the possession of David Bone's daughter, Mrs. Freda Sprott. [2] Given the occasional and business-like nature of many of these letters, the collection as a whole is hardly of the first importance, though it does afford one or two sharp insights into Conrad the man and writer. Its chief value is in throwing light on one of Conrad's minor, but increasingly warm friendships (in this case, with a seaman-writer whose career has some parallels with Conrad's own) and in suggesting how, as a result of the American trip in 1923, other members of the Bone family became part of the Conrad circle.