author

Jessie Conrad

1873–1936

A vivid memoirist and domestic writer, she is best remembered for books that bring Joseph Conrad’s life and circle into close, personal focus. Her work ranges from literary recollection to practical household writing, giving a rare glimpse of everyday life around one of the early 20th century’s major novelists.

1 Audiobook

A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House

A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House

by Jessie Conrad

About the author

Born Jessie Emmeline George in 1873, she became Jessie Conrad after marrying novelist Joseph Conrad. She wrote several books of her own, including A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House (1923), Personal Recollections of Joseph Conrad (1924), Joseph Conrad as I Knew Him (1926), Did Joseph Conrad Return as a Spirit? (1932), and Joseph Conrad and His Circle (1935).

Her writing is especially valuable for readers interested in the world around Joseph Conrad, because it preserves a personal, domestic view of his life, friends, and working habits. Rather than writing as a distant scholar, she wrote from lived experience, which gives her memoirs an intimate and readable quality.

Jessie Conrad died in 1936. Although she is often remembered in connection with her husband, her books also stand on their own as engaging records of literary life and of the practical concerns of a writer managing a household in the early 20th century.