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Richard Curle Biography & Facts

Richard Curle (1883–1968) was a Scottish author, critic, and journalist. He was a friend of the novelist Joseph Conrad, who was also the subject of several of his critical works. Conrad and Curle became friends in the 1910s, becoming especially close in Conrad's last years, and following Conrad's death in 1924 Curle was an executor of his estate. Curle's first book on Conrad, Joseph Conrad: A Study, was published in 1914; it was followed by Joseph Conrad's Last Day (privately published in 1924) and The Last Twelve Years of Joseph Conrad (1928), as well as a number of reviews and magazine articles. Curle's other works included the travel book Into the East (1923), based on his experiences in Asia, the mystery novels Corruption (1933) and Who Goes Home? (1935), and Characters of Dostoevsky (1950), a study of the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Early life and career Richard Henry Parnell Curle was born in Melrose, Scotland in 1883, the third of eleven children. His father was a landowner and lawyer. Curle attended Wellington College and subsequently worked as a columnist for the Daily Mail. He worked for the publisher Kegan Paul from 1905, and published several essays on George Meredith. Life and relationship with Joseph Conrad 1912–1923 Curle first met Joseph Conrad in November 1912. He had written an article on Conrad's work, focusing in particular on Nostromo, for that month's issue of Rhythm, which was shown to Conrad by Edward Garnett. He had also, the previous year, reviewed Conrad's Under Western Eyes for The Manchester Guardian, querying Conrad's turn to modernism and noting similarities with Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. After they met at a lunch hosted by Garnett at the Mont Blanc Restaurant, they entered into a mutually beneficial relationship in which Curle would write extensively about Conrad's work. In July 1913 Conrad wrote to Curle to express his support for Curle's then-forthcoming study of Conrad's work, saying that he had asked Doubleday, his American publisher, to consider publishing Curle's study, in order that Curle might be able to publish studies of other European authors in the United States. Conrad viewed Curle's study as a work that would introduce him to the American market, without pigeonholing him as a mere writer of nautical fiction. Curle, for his part, benefited financially from the works he published based on the access Conrad granted him. Along with Francis Warrington Dawson, Curle supplanted Ford Madox Ford as a member of the circle surrounding Conrad. While Conrad had seen Ford, who came to know him before his literary success, as an equal, he saw Curle, who he met only after achieving fame, as more of a disciple. Conrad came to see Curle as a James Boswell to his Samuel Johnson. Conrad's biographer Frederick R. Karl identifies Curle as one of several "substitute 'sons'" who gathered around Conrad in the 1910s, also including Dawson, Hugh Walpole and Georges Jean-Aubry. Alongside Walpole and Jean-Aubry, Curle was one of a number of younger men who wrote favourably about their friend Conrad. Curle would become a constant companion to Conrad in his later years. Conrad ridiculed Curle's book collecting, but nonetheless indulged him by providing him with signed first editions. Conrad's son John Conrad describes his father's growing closeness with Curle as occurring simultaneously with the decline of his friendship with Garnett, and argues that Curle was not simply a reader and advisor to Conrad but was also valued for his observations on his travels and "his ability to create a word-picture of a place or situation". The younger Conrad attests that "Dick, as we called him, became part of the family and was a frequent and very welcome visitor whenever he was in England", and came to be his father's closest friend. Karl described Curle as "stable, old-fashioned in his attitudes, very much a preserver of the proprieties, and a steadying force upon Conrad." Curle's wife, Cordelia Curle (née Fisher), was the sister of the historian H. A. L. Fisher, the cricketer and academic Charles Dennis Fisher, the naval officer William Wordsworth Fisher, the banker Edwin Fisher, and Adeline Vaughan Williams, the wife of the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Her other relatives included the historian Frederic William Maitland, the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, the author Virginia Woolf, and the artist Vanessa Bell. Cordelia was also close to Conrad, especially in the earlier years of her marriage. Their son Adam Curle was born in 1916. Richard was not a frequent presence in Adam's childhood; Adam did not meet his father until he was three years old. Adam Curle would later become Director of Harvard University's Centre for Studies in Education and Development, and the United Kingdom's first Professor of Peace Studies in the University of Bradford's Department of Peace Studies. Curle spent the years 1916–18 working as a journalist in South Africa. Conrad dedicated his novel The Arrow of Gold (1919) to him. He returned to the Daily Mail in the late 1910s as an assistant editor and columnist, and lived with Cordelia and Adam, then travelled to Burma in 1920 to take up the editorship of The Rangoon Times. He would spend much of 1920 in Burma and the Malay States. He and Cordelia divorced in 1922. Curle played the role of a go-between in negotiations with newspapers for the publication of Conrad's work. He was involved in the collation of Conrad's Notes on Life and Letters (1921). Curle played a greater role in Conrad's business affairs from 1922. Conrad wrote the preface to Curle's 1923 book of essays, Into the East. The preface also appeared in Conrad's posthumous Last Essays. In it, Conrad laments the passing of an earlier form of travel and its replacement by tourism; the preface does not mention Curle by name. Conrad's death and thereafter Curle spent time with Conrad in the days immediately before the latter's death. On 2 August 1924 they discussed Conrad's unfinished novel Suspense and visited a house he was considering renting; when Conrad experienced chest pains Curle called him a doctor. Neither doctor who attended Conrad believed he was seriously ill; he died, however, in the morning of 3 August. Curle attended his funeral four days later. Along with Ralph Wedgwood, Curle was executor of Conrad's estate until 1944, when responsibility was transferred to John Conrad and the law firm Withers. In this capacity he prepared Suspense for its 1925 publication, and privately published Conrad's Congo diaries and the notes Conrad had inscribed in Curle's copies of his works. Along with Jean-Aubry, Curle was pivotal in maintaining Conrad's reputation after his death, including when his books went out of print. Shortly after Conrad's death Curle, who was then working for the Daily Mail, arranged for short works by Conrad to appear in that newspaper, as well as in The Times, The Forum, The Blue Peter and The Yale Review. Curle edited and introduc.... Discover the Richard Curle popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Richard Curle books.