The Joseph Conrad Foundation (JCF) chartered by the State of Texas 24 September 1996 is a non profit, non-political, non-sectarian corporation organized exclusively for cultural, educational and literary purposes, primarily for the furtherance of scholarship on the life, works and times of the Polish-born English novelist Joseph Conrad, ne Jozef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski, the publication of scholarly and popular works in the same fields, the support of exhibits and museums dedicated to Joseph Conrad, the distribution of materials and memorabilia concerning Joseph Conrad, the support of sailing ships, works concerning the days of sail and exhibits and museums concerned with maritime activities, and finally, the support of all efforts beneficial to the propagation of the life and works of Joseph Conrad.

The corporation is organized exclusively for cultural, educational, literary, scholarly and other non profit purposes. No part of any net earnings shall inure to the benefit of any private member or shareholder.

The by-laws of the JCF are being drawn up along the lines of those prepared as a model for the Joseph Conrad Society of America, which were based on those of the Polish American Historical Association (PAHA).

A logo for the JCF has yet to be developed. Favored at this time for the letterhead is Tittle's portrait of Conrad used on the cover of Conradiana balanced by a drawing of the "Otago." Speaking of the "Otago," the JCF is in possession of a very detailed building plan of the ship which originated in Australia but the details have been lost and will be researched in the not too distant future. Anyone familiar with ship plans, especially those concerning this particular ship, please get in touch! Anyone with ideas for a logo is invited to submit them soonest.

The president of the JCF is Edmund A. Bojarski, 1209 N. Main St., Rusk, TX 75785 and the Legal and Financial Counsel is Leslie C. Hackler, JD, CPA, 106 W. 5th St., Rusk, TX 75785, who holds an ad hoc position on the JCF Board of Directors. There are three other members of the Board of Directors of the JCF as required by the laws of the State of Texas. The annual meetings of the JCF Board of Directors will be held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the MLA whenever possible but in any event before Labor Day of every year beginning in 1997. Emergency and consultative meetings may be held by electronic means. A quorum will be required for the meetings to be considered official.

The offices of the JCF are leased to purchase but the organization owns a historic home at 615 6th St., Anson, TX 76901 which it hopes to rebuild for use as a writers' retreat. Anson is near Abilene, TX which is the home of three universities.

The JCF will operate Conrad Books, P. O. Box 2041, Jacksonville, TX 75766, a small mail order book store which began life at the University of Maryland's College Park campus in 1968. It will also oversee the Thesis Bibliography Series (TBS), which dates back to McMurry College in Abilene, TX in 1972. A current project is the publication of an enlarged, revised and updated edition of Conrad in Academe: A Bibliography of Honors Essays, Masters' Theses and Doctoral Dissertations published by the University of Kentucky Press in 1964. The basic research on this project is being carried out by Annie Bearry, Reference/Computer Search Librarian at the Muntz Library of the University of Texas at Tyler. A second such project is the propagation and sale of Wanda Perczak's Polska Bibliografia Conradowska, a bibliography of Polish scholarship on Conrad 1896-1992 published in 1993 by university press at the Nicolas Copernicus University in Torun, Poland, where the bibliographer is a senior librarian. An English gloss is still in the planning stage. Reviews of the book are in progress. A revised version including abstracts is being worked on. Another book project in progress is a detailed and definitive study of Conrad's stay in the US by Dr. Hab. Krystyna Kujawinska-Courtney, Director of the British Studies and Research Centre of the International Institute of the University of Lodz (pronounced Wooge) in Poland. A review of Bernard Wielewinski's massive 3220 entry Doctoral Dissertations and Masters' Theses in Polish Studies, 1900-1990 is being done for publication in The Polish Review of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America (PIASA) of New York.

If much of the work listed in progress is bibliographic it is because this seems at the moment to be the way to begin the activities of the JCF. A filmography of unknown and foreign work is being put together and efforts are being made to obtain for the JCF the rights to some of these materials to be used in fund-raising efforts in the future. At the moment of writing, the JCF is attempting to obtain an unknown filming of Heart of Darkness for a screening at the Conrad sessions at the Heart of Darkness Centenary Conference in South Africa 26 March - 1 April, 1998. We also plan to be represented at the Conrad conference in London 3-5 July, 1997, and at the MLA in Toronto in December, 1997.

Eventually the material available through Conrad Books will appear on the JCF Home Page, as will progress notes on the various publishing projects and the JCF fund-raising efforts. To date no fund-raising efforts have been made.

One of the donations received by the JCF is copies in mint condition of a wonderful 1966 monograph by Professor (Emeritus) Katheryn Molinoff of the C. W. Post College of the Long Island University which details the tarring and feathering of its subject in the quiet town of Southon in New York. Wish we had a hundred copies to present to all the librarians all over the world who are helping to pull together the new Conrad in Academe. We do have some copies of Borys Conrad's signed brochure on Conrad's homes in Kent which is being used in that way. It is probably a profligate use of the JCF's resources since it was said at the Kent State University Conrad conference in April, l995 that the brochure was selling for $35 on the rare book market.

The JCF owns two issues, 1926 and 1927, of The Conradite, an annual of the Joseph Conrad Literary Club of Buffalo, the first such organization on our records. Does anyone know of an earlier instance? There were, it seems, some such organizations among the Polish military in the Middle East during World War II, fostered, if memory serves, by Wit Tarnawski, MD, one of the nominees for the proposed JCF Conradian Hall of Fame.