'My Dear Wells, I owe you a good turn for pointing out Conrad to me. I remember I got his first book, Almayer?s Folly, to review with a batch of others from Unwin, & feeling at the time rather bored (you know the feeling?I get through 50 or 60 novels a month for two papers) I simply didn?t read it at all?wrote a vague & discreet par. & left it.' I have just read his new book 'The Nigger of the Narcissus', which has moved me to enthusiasm. Where did the man pick up that style, & that synthetic way of gathering up a general impression & flinging it at you? Not only his style, but his attitude, affected me deeply. He is so consciously an artist.