CONRAD, Joseph (1857-1924). Almayer's Folly, London, 1895, 8vo, title printed in red and black (some spotting), original green cloth gilt (bumped). FIRST EDITION OF THE AUTHOR'S FIRST NOVEL, FIRST ISSUE. RARE.

CONRAD, Joseph (1857-1924).  Almayer's Folly. A Story of an Eastern River. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895. 8vo (205 x 130mm). Half title with publisher's advertisement on the verso, title printed in red and black (variable spotting throughout). Original green cloth, the spine lettered in gilt, top edges gilt, others uncut (some light staining, corners bumped). Provenance: The Property of a Collector. FIRST EDITION OF THE AUTHOR'S FIRST NOVEL, FIRST ISSUE, with missing full-stop in the running title on p.43 and missing letters [?probably the word "of"] in the last line on p.110. Cagle A1a; Ehrsam p.259; Smith 1; Wise 1: "Almayer's Folly was first reprinted in America by Messrs. Macmillan & Co., in 1895. Mr. Conrad has stated that the novel was commenced in the spring [sic] of 1889, and finished in 1894. The work was not published serially, but made its first appearance in the pages of the present volume. It is clear that ex-library copies of Almayer's Folly in damaged or worn-out bindings have recently [i.e. 1920] been made attractive and marketable by the apparently simple process of re-casing them in cloth as nearly as possible uniform with the original covers ..." We are entirely confident that the present copy is not one of these. RARE, with estimates of numbers of copies printed ranging from 1,000 (by the publisher) to 2,000 (by Wise), with the author himself suggesting a first printing of 1,100 copies.