Produced by Janet Blenkinship and also, thanks to Michael Kerwin of Occidental College for supplying images of the missing pages from the book I had in hand, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net This "O-P Book" Is an Authorized Reprint of the Original Edition, Produced by Microfilm-Xerography by University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1966 NOTES ON MY BOOKS BY JOSEPH CONRAD GARDEN CITY, N. Y., AND TORONTO DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY MCMXXI COPYRIGHT, 1920, 1921, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN NOTES ON MY BOOKS ALMAYER'S FOLLY I am informed that in criticizing that literature which preys on strange people and prowls in far-off countries, under the shade of palms, in the unsheltered glare of sunbeaten beaches, amongst honest cannibals and the more sophisticated pioneers of our glorious virtues, a lady--distinguished in the world of letters--summed up her disapproval of it by saying that the tales it produced were "de-civilized." And in that sentence not only the tales but, I apprehend, the strange people and the far-off countries also, are finally condemned in a verdict of contemptuous dislike. A woman's judgment: intuitive, clever, expressed with felicitous charm--infallible. A judgment that has nothing to do with justice. The critic and the judge seems to think that in those distant lands all joy is a yell and a war dance, all pathos is a howl and a ghastly grin of filed teeth, and that the solution of all problems is found in the barrel of a revolver or on the point of an assegai. And yet it is not so. But the erring magistrate may plead in excuse the misleading nature of the evidence. The picture of life, there as here, is drawn with the same elaboration of detail, coloured with the same tints. Only in the cruel serenity of the sky, under the merciless brilliance of the sun, the dazzled eye misses the delicate detail, sees only the strong outlines, while the colours, in the steady light, seem crude and-without shadow. Nevertheless it is the same picture. And there is a bond between us and that humanity so far away. I am speaking here of men and women--not of the charming and graceful phantoms that move about in our mud and smoke and are softly luminous with the radiance of all our virtues; that are possessed of all refinements, of all sensibilities, of all wisdom--but, being only phantoms, possess no heart.