The Professor’s House

by Jack Skeffington In the introduction to Not Under Forty, Willa Cather’s 1936 collection of essays, she (in)famously writes that “the world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts,” an opinion that, if nothing else, has fairly successfully separated her from the ranks of artists and authors we have come to call modernists.[1] The judgment,… Continue Reading The Professor’s House

The Black Mate

by Jack Skeffington “The Black Mate” possesses—possibly—the distinction of being Joseph Conrad’s first piece of fiction. Unfortunately, only two dates are certain regarding this short story: first published in the April, 1908 edition of The London Magazine, “The Black Mate” escaped collection until the posthumous volume Tales of Hearsay in 1925. The title of that… Continue Reading The Black Mate