The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad. Volume 7: 1920–1922

In January 1921 two of England’s foremost writers, who had never met or corresponded, elected to take a mid-winter break on adjacent islands in the Mediterranean. Joseph Conrad and his wife Jessie had booked a three-month holiday in Corsica, while D.H. Lawrence and Frieda had left their villa in Taormina, Sicily for a ten-day expedition to explore Sardinia. Although the letters of neither say much about their respective islands, the visits were vital in stimulating their creativity, albeit in different ways. Immediately on his return to Sicily, the young Lawrence began Sea and Sardinia, which conveys his delighted response to the timeless Italian landscape, its people and history, and reveals his uncanny ability to transmute the spirit of place into literary art. Every page is shot through with spontaneity and gaiety, from presenting the experience of being a foreigner in a foreign land with wit and humour, to the passages that reveal a shrewd understanding of the political and social aspects of an era which witnessed the rise of communism and fascism.

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