the fact that the oldest of them is
less than twenty-five years old, they probably set new records for the
trade. Even the latest in date are eagerly sought, and it is not
uncommon to see an English edition of a Conrad book sold at an advance
in New York within a month of its publication.[8]

As I hint, however, there is not much reason to believe that this
somewhat extravagant fashion is based upon any genuine liking, or any
very widespread understanding. The truth is that, for all the adept
tub-thumping of publishers, Conrad's sales still fall a good deal behind
those of even the most modest of best-seller manufacturers, and that the
respect with which his successive volumes are received is accompanied by
enthusiasm in a relatively narrow circle only. A clan of Conrad fanatics
exists, and surrounding it there is a body of readers who read him
because it is the intellectual thing to do, and who talk of him because
talking of him is expected. But beyond that he seems to make little
impression. When "Victory" was printed in _Munsey's Magazine_ it was a
failure; no other single novel, indeed, contributed more toward the
abandonment of the policy of printing a complete novel in each issue.
The other popular magazines show but small inclination for Conrad
manuscripts. Some time ago his account of a visit to Poland in war-time
was offered on the American market by an English author's agent. At the
start a price of $2,500 was put upon it, but after vainly inviting
buyers for a couple of months it was finally disposed of to a literary
newspaper which seldom spends so much as $2,500, I daresay, for a whole
month's supply of copy.

In the United States, at least, novelists are made and unmade, not by
critical majorities, but by women, male and female. The art of fiction
among us, as Henry James once said, "is almost exclusively feminine." In
the books of such a man as William Dean Howells it is difficult to find
a single line that is typically and exclusively masculine. One could
easily imagine Edith Wharton, or Mrs. Watts, or even Agnes Repplier,
writing all of them. When a first-rate novelist emerges from obscurity
it is almost always by some fortuitous plucking of the dexter string.
"Sister Carrie," for example, has made a belated commercial success, not
because its dignity as a human document is understood, but because it is
mistaken for a sad tale of amour, not unrelated to "The Woman Thou
Gavest Me" and "Dora Thorne." In