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Falk: A Reminiscence

November 23, 2011 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

Falk (1903) is not one of Joseph Conrad’s better-known stories, yet it deserves to be. It is just as successful as Heart of Darkness in exploring powerful and extreme situations. It was first published in the collection Typhoon and Other Tales (1903) and is the only one of Conrad’s stories which did not first appear serialized in magazine publication. This was because the editor objected to the fact that the very powerfully evoked central female character never speaks.

Joseph Conrad

Falk – critical commentary

Inter-textuality

Falk (1903) is composed of many elements Conrad used in his other novels and novellas. The story begins with a group of mariners dining in a small river-hostelry in the Thames estuary discussing seafaring matters – a situation he had already used in Heart of Darkness, which was written the year before. He even uses a similar comparison of the narrative present with a distant past – not that of the Roman invasion, but of primeval man telling tales of his experience.

An unnamed outer-narrator sets the scene, and then the story is taken up by a second and equally unnamed inner-narrator – a type rather like Marlow, the inner-narrator of Heart of Darkness and other Conrad tales. He is recounting events which took place when he was a younger man.

The young man is taking up his first assignment as a captain – a plot device Conrad had used in Heart of Darkness and was to use again in both The Shadow-Line and The Secret Sharer. The location of events is not specified, but it corresponds in many details to Bangkok, which appears in the two later novellas. He is also taking over from a rather dubious previous captain who has died, and his ship is held up in port with a sickly crew.

Characters from other Conrad tales appear in the story: Schomberg the gossipy Alsatian hotel owner who appears in Lord Jim (1900) and Victory (1915); Gambril, the elderly sailor who also appears in The Shadow-Line. And of course Falk’s dreadful experiences drifting powerless on a doomed ship towards the South Pole carries unmistakable echoes of The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner and The Flying Dutchman legend.

A Darwinian reading

It’s possible to argue that Falk is concerned with the elemental forces which man needs in order to survive. In the animal world there are three basic instincts which combine to form a will to prevail – that results in ‘the survival of the fittest’. These are the hunt for food, the urge to procreate, and the fight for territory.

Falk himself embodies all of these forces to a marked degree. He fights to stay alive, and he is even prepared to confront one of society’s most sacred taboos – he will kill and eat human flesh in order to endure and prevail.

His yearning for Hermann’s niece is a powerful, all-consuming physical passion. Despite all his sufferings on board the Borgmester Dahl, his unfulfilled desire for her hurts him more deeply. It is a more painful feeling to endure. ‘This is worse pain. This is more terrible’ he exclaims. It’s interesting to note that when Falk tows away Hermann’s ship by force, the narrator observes ‘I could not believe that a simple towing operation could suggest so plainly the idea of abduction, of rape. Falk was simply running off with the Diana‘.

He gets what he yearns for in the end. And it’s interesting to note that he also asserts his dominance in terms of territory. With his tug boat on the river he has a monopoly over navigation, and can charge whatever he wishes for piloting ships to the open sea. He does a similar thing in the struggle for survival on the stricken Borgmester Dahl by siezing control of the last firearm on board. The young captain reflects ‘He was a born monopolist’.

Falk endures the most extreme conditions imaginable – hunger, deprivation, and the threat of death. As the Borgmester Dahl drifts aimlessly towards the south pole, he inhabits a microcosm of a Hobbesian world. His life is nasty, brutish, and is likely to be short. And he is surrounded by cowards and incompetents. Yet he wills himself to endure; he takes control of the ship; and he is prepared to fight back against man’s inhumanity to man when the carpenter attacks him. He triumphs and survives. ‘They all died … But I would not die … Only the best man would survive. It was a great, terrible, and cruel misfortune.’

The food and eating leitmotif

Imagery of food and eating occur repeatedly throughout the story. The narrative begins with men of the sea ‘dining in a small river-hostelry. And they are compared with their primitive counterparts telling ‘tales of hunger and hunt – and of women perhaps!’amongst gnawed bones.

The young captain dines on chops at Schomberg’s table d’hote and listens (whilst the hotelier eats ‘furiously’) to his complaints against Falk. These complaints are based of food an cooking. Falk refuses to dine at Schomberg’s hotel because he is a vegetarian. He has also stolen Schomberg’s native cook.

Schomberg regards Falk as unnatural because he does not eat meat: ‘A white man should eat like a white man … Ought to eat meat, must eat meat.’ But Falk even bans meat-eating from his own ship, and pays his crew a supplements to their wages for the inconvenience. The young captain reflects ruefully on the state of affairs:

I was engaged just then in eating despondently a piece of stale Dutch cheese, being too much crushed to care what I swallowed myself, let alone bothering my head about Falk’s ideas of gastronomy. I could expect from their study no clue to his conduct in matters of business, which seemed to me totally unrestrained by morality or even by the commonest sort of decency.

This is a wonderful example of the sort of ironic prolepses Conrad embeds in his text. Falk’s ideas of gastronomy have been formed by exactly the same extreme experiences which have influenced his moral attitudes to business and society. He has seen and endured the Worst, and he has survived in the most primitive struggle for existence. And his shock at finding himself forced to eat a fellow human being leads to his choice of vegetarianism. There is therefore a direct link between his gastronomy and his morality. But the young captain does not know that at this point of the narrative.

Falk’s final descent into cannibalism is reinforced by understatement. He tells his bride-to-be and father-in-law: “I have eaten man”.

Story or novella?

There is no clear dividing line between a long story and a novella – in terms of length. At approximately 20,000 words it would be possible to argue that Falk is a long story: The first part deals with a young captain and his experiences on shore in Bangkok: the second part recounts the shocking details of Falk’s experiences on board the Borgmester Dahl.

But the fundamental issues at stake in this story are so profound (the fight for survival – see above) and the concentrated imagery with which the story is articulated is so dense, that this narrative has all the qualities of a novella. It focuses on eating to stay alive, reproducing to continue the human race, and establishing dominance of a territorial space.

It’s true that there are a greater number of named characters in the story than normally appear in a novella – not all of them with important parts to play in the plot. But the focus of attention is largely on Falk, Hermann, and the narrator. Quite astonishingly, Hermann’s niece is also a vital part of the story – even though she is never named, she never speaks, and she does nothing except represent animal magnetism in its most vital form.

Falk – study resources

Falk – Oxford World Classics – Amazon UK

Falk – Oxford World Classics – Amazon US

Falk – Kindle eBook (annotated)

Falk – Tredition paperback – Amazon UK

Falk – Tredition paperback – Amazon US

Falk – eBook at Project Gutenberg

Joseph Conrad: A Biography – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Routledge Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Amazon UK

Notes on Life and Letters – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad – biographical notes

Falk – plot summary

A young mariner (‘not yet thirty’) takes charge of a ship in the far east (Bangkok) when the previous captain dies. The crew are sickly and unfriendly, the ship has no provisions, and there are delays in getting under way. He befriends Hermann, the captain of the Diana, a German ship which is moored nearby. Hermann lives on board with his wife, his four children, and his niece – who is a simple but physically attractive young woman. Hermann is planning to sell his ship and go back to Germany to retire. Also passing time with this family is Falk, the captain of a tug with a monopoly of navigation on the river leading out to the coast.

Falk is a remote, taciturn, and rather forbidding figure who is not popular with the local officials and traders. When the young captain’s and Hermann’s vessels are ready to depart, the young captain is annoyed to discover that Falk takes the Diana out first, damaging Hermann’s ship in the process. The captain tries to hire the one possible alternative navigator, but discovers that Falk has bought him off.

It transpires that Falk has taken this precipitate action because he is consumed with a passionate desire for Hermann’s voluptuous niece, and thinks the young captain is a rival. The captain confronts Falk, reassuring him that he has no designs on the girl. Falk asks for his diplomatic assistance in re-establishing good relations with Hermann, so that he can propose to the niece.

The young captain opens negotiations, and Hermann very reluctantly allows Falk to plead his case. But Falk explains that there is one thing the niece should know about him if she is to accept his offer of marriage – the fact that he had once eaten human flesh.

This sends Hermann into a explosion of outraged sensibility. The captain assumes that Falk has been involved in a shipwreck, but Falk explains to him the story of his experiences on a ship which is damaged beyond repair by storms at sea. It drifts helplessly into the Antarctic Ocean, and runs out of provisions. The crew and the captain are feckless, and start to die off or jump overboard. The ship’s carpenter tries to kill Falk, but Falk kills him instead, whereupon he and the remaining crew eat the man before eventually being rescued.

The young captain speaks on Falk’s behalf to Hermann, who eventually consents to the match – motivated partly by saving the cost of an extra cabin (for the niece) on the journey back to Bremen. When the young captain returns to the port five years later, Mr and Mrs Falk are no longer there.

Principal characters

—	the unnamed outer narrator
—	the unnamed inner-narrator
Hermann	a German ship master
Mrs Hermann	his wife
—	his physically attractive niece
Lena, Gustav, Carl, Nicholas	the Hermann children
Falk	a Danish or Norwegian tugboat captain
Schomberg	an Alsatian hotel-keeper
Mrs Schomberg	his grinning wife
Mr Siegers	principal in shipping office
Johnson	former captain, now a drunk who has gone native
Gambril	an elderly seaman

Biography

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad offers a series of essays by leading Conrad scholars aimed at both students and the general reader. There’s a chronology and overview of Conrad’s life, then chapters that explore significant issues in his major writings, and deal in depth with individual works. These are followed by discussions of the special nature of Conrad’s narrative techniques, his complex relationships with late-Victorian imperialism and with literary Modernism, and his influence on other writers and artists. Each essay provides guidance to further reading, and a concluding chapter surveys the body of Conrad criticism.

Joseph Conrad’s writing table

Joseph Conrad’s writing

Manuscript page from Heart of Darkness

Other work by Joseph Conrad

Nostromo (1904) is Conrad’s ‘big’ political novel – into which he packs all of his major subjects and themes. It is set in the imaginary Latin-American country of Costaguana – and features a stolen hoard of silver, desperate acts of courage, characters trembling on the brink of moral panic. The political background encompasses nationalist revolution and the Imperialism of foreign intervention. Silver is the pivot of the whole story – revealing the courage of some and the corruption and destruction of others. Conrad’s narration is as usual complex and oblique. He begins half way through the events of the revolution, and proceeds by way of flashbacks and glimpses into the future.
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The Secret Agent (1907) is a short novel and a masterpiece of sustained irony. It is based on the real incident of a bomb attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1888 and features a cast of wonderfully grotesque characters: Verloc the lazy double agent, Inspector Heat of Scotland Yard, and the Professor – an anarchist who wanders through the novel with bombs strapped round his waist and the detonator in his hand. The English government and police are subject to sustained criticism, and the novel bristles with some wonderfully orchestrated effects of dramatic irony – all set in the murky atmosphere of Victorian London. Here Conrad prefigures all the ambiguities which surround two-faced international relations, duplicitous State realpolitik, and terrorist outrage which still beset us more than a hundred years later.
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Buy the book from Amazon US

Joseph Conrad web links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Joseph Conrad at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, production notes, box office, trivia, and quizzes.

Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.

More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales

Freya of the Seven Isles

August 30, 2013 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

Freya of the Seven Isles was written in late 1910–early 1911. It was first published in Metropolitan Magazine in early 1912 and in London Magazine for July 1912. It was then collected in ’Twixt Land and Sea, published by J.M.Dent & Sons in 1912. The other tales in the collection were A Smile of Fortune and The Secret Sharer.

Paul Gaugin 1848-1903

Freya of the Seven Isles – critical commentary

Narrative

Conrad is rightly celebrated as a writer who creates highly wrought narratives with complex time schemes, which are often constructed to produce amazing feats of ironic and tragic drama. The complexity is often created by having both an inner and an outer narrator as sources of information about events and characters, or by having the information assembled in an order which does not follow the actual chronology of events. This can sometimes make extra intellectual demands on the reader – but at their best they carry with them compensating artistic effects of a high order. It is no accident that Conrad (along with his contemporary and friend Henry James) is seen as one of the precursors of the Modernist movement.

However, it has to be said that these complexities of narrative technique are not always kept under control: see comments on Nostromo (1904) and Under Western Eyes (1911) for instance. Conrad sometimes seems to forget who is telling the story, and first person narratives often drift to become an account of events in third person omniscient mode.

In the case of Freya of the Seven Isles there is a breakdown in the logic of the narrative which results in people giving an account of events they have not witnessed or cannot know about. The sequence or chain of knowledge is as follows:

The outer narrator receives a letter written to him by someone in the Mesman office in Macassar. The letter mentions Nielsen, which prompts the narrator’s reminiscence.
His reminiscence becomes the principal narrative, and the narrator is a participant in events. He is acquainted with Nielsen and Freya.
The tale gradually turns into a narrative in third person omniscient mode. That is, it includes the thoughts and feelings of the characters in the tale.
When the outer narrator tows Jasper Allen out to sea in Part II, he draws attention to the fact that it is the last time he ever sees Jasper, Nielsen, Freya, and Heemskirk together.
This point is reinforced in Part III, when the narrator points out that it is the last time he ever sees Jasper. Yet he knows what Jasper’s secret plans are, later in the tale.
At the end of Part III the narrator goes back to London, yet from Part IV onwards, the third person omniscient narrative continues. There are scenes, thoughts, fears, and feelings which cannot have been transmitted to the narrator – for a number of reasons:
- there is nobody else in the scene to relay the information
- the subject is missing ((Jasper, Heemskirk)
- the subject is dead (Freya)
Late in the tale, Conrad seems to remember that information about events was prompted by the letter. The narrator observes ‘All this story, read in my friend’s very chatty letter.’ But the information in the letter could only be related to events as seen in Macassar. His friend could not possibly know about Freya’s thoughts and fears when being secretly spied upon by Heemskirk. (for instance).
Nielsen visits the narrator in London to reveal the news of Freya’s death – but he too cannot know about the thoughts and feelings of characters in scenes in which he was not present.

What you make of these weaknesses will depend upon your levels of tolerance, but it is worth pointing to them if only because Conrad seems to go out of his way to make his narrative logic and credibility more complex than it needs to be. All of these events could have been conveyed in traditional third person omniscient narrative mode

Freya of the Seven Isles – study resources

Freya of the Seven Isles – CreateSpace editions – Amazon UK

Freya of the Seven Isles – CreateSpace editions – Amazon US

Complete Works of Joseph Conrad – Kindle eBook

Freya of the Seven Isles – eBook versions at Project Gutenberg

Joseph Conrad: A Biography – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Routledge Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Amazon UK

Notes on Life and Letters – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad – biographical notes

Freya of the Seven Isles – plot summary

Part I. The un-named narrator gives an account of Nielsen, a Dane who is an experienced seaman in the Eastern Malayan Archipelago. He is frightened of both the Dutch and the Spanish authorities, and has settled on a remote island. Following the death of his wife, their beautiful daughter Freya goes to live with him on the island.

She is courted by Jasper Allen, the owner of Bonito, a fast and elegant brig, who feels that the narrator might be a rival for Freya. Nielsen is more worried about the authorities than Jasper’s courtship of his daughter. Jasper puts lots of effort into maintaining the brig, regarding it as a potential home for Freya, who he hopes to marry.

Part II. Nielsen’s hospitality is abused by Heemskirk, the commander of a gunboat, who is also interested in Freya. The narrator counsels Freya to keep Jasper as quiet as possible. She wishes to become mistress of the elegant brig Bonito.

Part III. A few weeks later the narrator meets Jasper in Singapore. Jasper and Freya are planning to elope, but she wants him to delay until she is twenty-one, which leaves them eleven months left to wait. Jasper has taken on a dubious mate Schultz, who is given to drink and stealing.

The narrator visits Nielsen shortly before Freya’s birthday, immediately following visits from Jasper and Heemskirk, who has been particularly obnoxious. The visit also seems to have upset Freya. The narrator leaves on the eve of the planned elopement, then has to return to England. He writes to both Jasper and Freya but hears nothing in return.

Part IV. The narrative goes back to Heemskirk’s visit. He annoys Nielsen and provokes his sense of insecurity, especially regarding Freya. He sneaks up, trying to spy on Freya and Jasper. Freya feels she must try to protect both Jasper and her father. Jasper wants to take her away there and then; but she advises caution and waiting. They all have dinner together, then Jasper leaves for his ship accompanied by Nielsen. In their absence a drunken Heemskirk menaces and molests Freya, who ends up smacking his face very hard. When Nielsen returns he naively thinks that Heemskirk has toothache. Neilsen urges Freya not to upset a man who has political influence in the region. In the morning Heemskirk spies on Freya who is watching Jasper’s brig departing – then he slinks off.

Part V. Heemskirk makes some unspecified political arrangements with the ‘authorities’, then steams out in his gunboat to intercept Jasper in the Bonito. He accuses him of illegal trading, and takes over the brig, towing it towards Macassar. But he deliberately wrecks the brig on a reef at high tide.

Part VI. The Bonita’s stock of arms has disappeared – which arouses suspicions of illegal arms trading by Jasper. It emerges that the arms were stolen and sold by Schultz, but when he makes his confession to the authorities they refuse to believe him. He ends up cutting his own throat. The brig meanwhile is looted whilst it is stranded on the reef.

Time passes, and the outer narrator is in London when he is visited by Nielsen, who fills in the rest of the tale.

After getting news of the wreck of the Bonito, Freya becomes ill, then tells her father everything about the elopement plan. Nielsen goes to see Jasper, who is in terminal despair. Nielsen sells up and takes Freya to live in Hong Kong. She reproaches herself for not being more courageous and dies of pneumonia.

Joseph Conrad – video biography

Freya of the Seven Isles – main characters

I	the un-named narrator
Nielsen	a Danish widower
Freya	his attractive daughter
Jasper Allen	English owner of the fast brig Bonito
Heemskirk	Dutch commander of the gunboat Neptun
Schultz	a drunken and kleptomaniac mate

First edition – J.M.Dent & Sons 1912

Joseph Conrad’s writing table

Other writing by Joseph Conrad

Lord Jim (1900) is the earliest of Conrad’s big and serious novels, and it explores one of his favourite subjects – cowardice and moral redemption. Jim is a ship’s captain who in youthful ignorance commits the worst offence – abandoning his ship. He spends the remainder of his adult life in shameful obscurity in the South Seas, trying to re-build his confidence and his character. What makes the novel fascinating is not only the tragic but redemptive outcome, but the manner in which it is told. The narrator Marlowe recounts the events in a time scheme which shifts between past and present in an amazingly complex manner. This is one of the features which makes Conrad (born in the nineteenth century) considered one of the fathers of twentieth century modernism.
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Heart of Darkness (1902) is a tightly controlled novella which has assumed classic status as an account of the process of Imperialism. It documents the search for a mysterious Kurtz, who has ‘gone too far’ in his exploitation of Africans in the ivory trade. The reader is plunged deeper and deeper into the ‘horrors’ of what happened when Europeans invaded the continent. This might well go down in literary history as Conrad’s finest and most insightful achievement, and it is based on his own experiences as a sea captain. This volume also contains ‘An Outpost of Progress’ – the magnificent study in shabby cowardice which prefigures ‘Heart of Darkness’.
Buy the book from Amazon UK
Buy the book from Amazon US

Joseph Conrad web links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.

More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
Joseph Conrad complete tales

Gaspar Ruiz

September 14, 2013 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

Gaspar Ruiz was written shortly after Nostromo in 1904–5. It was published in The Strand Magazine in 1906, and collected in A Set of Six, published in 1908 (UK) and 1915 (US). The other stories in this collection of Joseph Conrad’s work were The Informer, The Brute, The Duel, Il Conde, and An Anarchist. This story was the only piece of Conrad’s fiction ever adapted by the author for cinema, as Gaspar the Strong Man, 1920.

Gaspar Ruiz – critical commentary

In the ‘Author’s Note’ which acts as an introductory essay to A Set of Six in which this tale appears, Conrad observes that he wrote the story within a month of finishing Nostromo, and claims that ‘apart from the locality … the novel and the story have nothing in common, neither mood, nor intention and, certainly, not the style’. This statement just serves to illustrate the observation made by D.H.Lawrence that we should ‘trust the tale, not the teller’.

Gaspar Ruiz is so similar to Nostromo that it could almost be unused section from the novel. Quite apart from the Latin-American setting, it has more of the characteristics of a novel than a story – or even a tale.

There are simply too many large scale events which obtrude and disrupt such a short piece of fiction. There is a firing squad execution; a miraculous survival; an earthquake; a switching of political allegiance; a changing geographic location; an undramatised rise from poverty to large scale political success; an almost ludicrous man-cannon merger; a death and a suicide. This is all too much for even the most elastic of literary forms – the tale – to bear.

Conrad also seeks to justify the content of his tale with the most threadbare appeals to verisimilitude in his introduction. He claims that the character of Gaspar Ruiz comes from a documentary source:

The curious who may be mistrusting my imagination are referred to that printed document, Vol. II, I forget the page, but it is somewhere not far from the end.

And the final semi-ludicrous episode of Ruiz having the cannon strapped to his back is justified on even thinner grounds:

the gun episode did really happen, or at least I am bound to believe it because I remember it, described in an extremely matter-of-fact tone, in some book I read in my boyhood; and I am not going to discard the beliefs of my boyhood for anybody on earth.

These remarks might in fact be tongue-in-cheek – Conrad throwing sops out to the reading public that ‘these things really did happen, and I have proof’. But as contemporary readers we are fully justified in disatending completely to these claims – be they true or not. The fact is that these disparate dramatic incidents do not add up to a coherent whole or a satisfactory narrative composition.

It is not the a-chronological arrangement of their elements which is in question. Most of the information comes to the reader from Santierra’s account, though as is common in Conrad’s work, there are frequent drifts into third-person omniscient narrative mode.

In fact the narrative begins in third person omniscient narrative mode; then it shifts into first person narrative mode as Santierra takes over the story. Later when Gaspar Ruiz is escaping from under a pile of dead bodies, Conrad is forced back into third person mode in order to give an account of his feelings and wishes.

A novel such as Nostromo is a large scale account of complex characters and events – a novel of the type that Henry James described as ‘loose baggy monsters’. That is, it can incorporate all sorts of digressions, over-dramatic episodes, and non-essential characters without losing credibility. The same cannot be said for Gaspar Ruiz.

Gaspar Ruiz – study resources

A Set of Six – CreateSpace editions – Amazon UK

A Set of Six – CreateSpace editions – Amazon US

The Complete Works of Joseph Conrad – Kindle eBook

A Set of Six – eBook versions at Project Gutenberg

Joseph Conrad: A Biography – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Routledge Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Amazon UK

Notes on Life and Letters – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad – biographical notes

Gaspar Ruiz – plot summary

Part I. Gaspar Ruiz joined the republican forces during a revolutionary war in an un-named South American country. He was captured by the Royalist forces and forced to bear arms. Having been recaptured by the republicans, he is about to be shot as a deserter and a traitor.

Part II. The detainees are locked in a cellar before being executed later in the day. When they need water, buckets cannot be passed through the window bars. Lieutenant Santierra, sends for the door key, but the officer in charge is having his siesta.

Part III. The story flashes forwards fifty years as Santierra, now a General, recalls his youthful chagrin. He has organised a delay in the executions, but now seems to have made matters worse. Gaspar Ruiz persuades him to release his tied hands.

Part IV. The soldiers think Gaspar Ruiz is trying to escape: Santierra has to deflect an attempt to shoot him. But Gaspar Ruiz bends the window bars and distributes water to the prisoners. Later the same day he goes meekly to be executed, along with the other prisoners.

Part V. Bullets hit Gaspar Ruiz, but they do not kill him.He remains motionless beneath a pile of bodies. A soldier slashes his neck with a sword, but this does not kill him either. He escapes at night and hides in a nearby house.

Part VI. Santierra then recounts (many years later) the story of the old Royalist and his daughter Donna Ermina in whose house Gaspar Ruiz sought refuge. The old man is Spanish and has lost everything in the revolution, and has become deranged. They hide Gaspar Ruiz in a shed.

Part VII. Gaspar Ruiz recovers slowly, but he realises that he cannot go anywhere without the fear of recapture and almost certain execution.

Part VIII. Santierra patrols this same area and passes the house each night. He talks to the girl, who tells him that Gaspar Ruiz wants safe passage and seeks an audience with a senior commander to explain his case. Santierra and his colleague Robles head an attempt to arrest Ruiz that night, but when they get to the house there is an earthquake. Ruiz saves the lives of Robles and Santierra, then rescues Donna Ermina from the wreckage and escapes.

Part IX. Santierra and his troops are guarding the destroyed town against looters. When Santierra moves to Santiago, Gaspar Ruiz turns up there again, and conducts a successful raid against the Royalists as proof of his adherence to the revolutionary cause. Its leader, San Martin, makes him a captain as a reward. He is appointed to protect the southern border whilst the army takes the revolutionary war into Peru.

Part X. Gaspar Ruiz establishes his own army, goes from strength to strength, and under the influence of Donna Ermina reverts to the Royalist cause, calling himself Colonel of the King of Spain The revolutionaries return from success in Peru, but they fail to capture him.

Part XI. Ruiz sends his wife and child over the mountains to safety, but they are betrayed and arrested. Santierra is captured by Ruiz’s men, but he is spared because Ruiz recognises him. He uses him as a negotiator to attempt a recovery of Donna Ermina and his child from a fortress where they are being held. All attempts to attack the fortress fail, and when a cannon is requisitioned it arrives without any firing platform. Gaspar Ruiz has the cannon fastened to his own back so it can be fired at the fortress – a strategy which kills him.

Part XII. Santierra is given the task of escorting Donna Ermina and her child. As a well-known Royalist, Donna Ermina is very fearful of what will happen to her. She gives the child to Santierra, then throws herself off a cliff. Santierra later adopts the child as his own daughter, and makes her his heiress.

Joseph Conrad – video biography

Gaspar Ruiz – principal characters

Lieutenant Santierra	officer in army of liberation – becomes a general
Gaspar Ruiz	a simple and very strong peasant
Dona Erminia	daughter of a royalist
General Robles	revolutionary commander

Joseph Conrad’s writing

Manuscript page from Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad’s writing table

Other writing by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad web links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.

More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
Joseph Conrad complete tales

Heart of Darkness

February 13, 2010 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, characters, resources, videos, writing

Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness – plot summary

The story opens with five men on a boat on the river Thames. Marlow begins telling a story of a job he took as captain of a steamship in Africa. He begins by ruminating on how Britain’s image among Ancient Roman officials must have been similar to Africa’s image among nineteenth century British officials. He describes how his aunt secured the job for him. When he arrives in Africa, he encounters many men he dislikes as they strike him as untrustworthy. They speak of a man named Kurtz, who has a reputation as a rogue ivory collector, but who is “essentially a great musician,” a journalist, a skilled painter and “a universal genius.”

Marlow arrives at the Central Station run by the general manager, an unwholesome conspiratorial character. He finds that his steamship has been sunk and spends several months waiting for parts to repair it. Kurtz is rumored to be ill, making the delays in repairing the ship all the more costly. Marlow eventually gets the parts and he and the manager set out with a few agents and a crew of cannibals on a long, difficult voyage up river. The dense jungle and oppressive silence make everyone aboard a little jumpy and the occasional glimpse of a native village or the sound of drums works the voyagers into a frenzy.

Marlow and his crew come across a hut with stacked firewood together with a note saying that the wood is for them but that they should approach cautiously. Shortly after the steamer has taken on the firewood it is surrounded by a dense fog. When the fog clears, the ship is attacked by an unseen band of natives, who fire arrows from the safety of the forest. A Russian trader who meets them as they come ashore, assures them that everything is fine and informs them that he is the one who left the wood. Kurtz has established himself as a god with the natives and has gone on brutal raids in the surrounding territory in search of ivory.

Marlow and his crew take the ailing Kurtz aboard their ship and depart. Kurtz is lodged in Marlow’s pilothouse and Marlow begins to see that Kurtz is every bit as grandiose as previously described. During this time, Kurtz gives Marlow a collection of papers and a photograph for safekeeping. Both had witnessed the Manager going through Kurtz’s belongings. The photograph is of a beautiful woman whom Marlow assumes is Kurtz’s love interest.

One night Marlow happens upon Kurtz, obviously near death. As Marlow comes closer with a candle, Kurtz seems to experience a moment of clarity and speaks his last words: “The horror! The horror!” Marlow believes this to be Kurtz’s reflection on the events of his life. Marlow does not inform the Manager or any of the other voyagers of Kurtz’s death; the news is instead broken by the Manager’s child-servant.

Marlow later returns to his home city and is confronted by many people seeking things and ideas of Kurtz. Marlow eventually sees Kurtz’s fiancée about a year later; she is still in mourning. She asks Marlow about Kurtz’s death and Marlow informs her that his last words were her name — rather than, as really happened, “The horror! The horror!”

The story’s conclusion returns to the boat on the Thames and mentions how it seems as though the boat is drifting into the heart of the darkness.

Study resources

Heart of Darkness – Oxford University Press – Amazon UK

Heart of Darkness – Oxford University Press – Amazon US

Heart of Darkness – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

Heart of Darkness – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

Heart of Darkness – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon UK

Heart of Darkness – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon US

Heart of Darkness – eBook version at Project Gutenberg – [FREE]

Heart of Darkness – York Notes (Advanced) – Amazon UK

Heart of Darkness – audioBook version (unabridged) – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: A Casebook – Amazon UK

Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ – criticism (Bloomsbury) – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ – criticism (Chelsea) – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad: ‘Heart of Darkness’ – criticism (Icon) – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ – criticism (Routledge) – Amz UK

Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ – criticism (Penguin) – Amazon UK

An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’

Heart of Darkness – audioBook at LibriVox

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Routledge Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex – tutorials, web links, study resources

Heart of Darkness – film adaptation

Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of Heart of Darkness transforms events from Europe’s imperialist exploitation of the the Belgian Congo to America’s war in Vietnam in the 1960s. It remains amazingly faithful to the original, even whilst translating the settings and events into the fully mechanised assault of the world’s most powerful industrial nation against a country of poor farmers and peasants. Marlow becomes Captain Willard, who is sent on a mission to terminate (‘with extreme prejudice’) the command of rogue Major Kurtz, who has gone over the border into Cambodia with a band of followers.

Francis Ford Coppola adaptation 1979

See reviews of the film at the Internet Movie Database

Principal characters

I	an unnamed outer narrator who relays Marlow’s story
Marlow	a ferry-boat captain, the principal character and narrator of events
Kurtz	chief of the Inner Station of Belgian ivory traders
General manager	chief of the Outer Station
Chief accountant	impeccably dressed functionary
Pilgrims	greedy agents of the Outer Station
Cannibals	natives hired as steamer crew
Russian trader	a disciple of Kurtz with patched clothes
Helmsman	native sailor who is killed in the attack on the boat
Kurtz’s African mistress	powerful and mysterious woman who never speaks
Kurtz’s ‘intended’	his devoted fiancee in Bussels
Aunt	relative who secures Marlow his job

Biography

Buy the book at Amazon UK
Buy the book at Amazon US

Manuscript page from Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a good introduction to Conrad and criticism of the text. It includes a potted biography, an outline of the novella, and pointers towards the main critical writings – from the early comments by his contemporaries to critics of the present day. The latter half of the book is given over to five extended critical readings of the text. These represent what are currently perceived as major schools of literary criticism – neo-Marxist, historicism, feminism, deconstructionist, and narratological.

Buy the book at Amazon UK
Buy the book at Amazon US

Other novels by Joseph Conrad

Under Western Eyes (1911) is the story of Razumov, a reluctant ‘revolutionary’. He is in fact a coward who is mistaken for a radical hero and cannot escape from the existential trap into which this puts him. This is Conrad’s searing critique of Russian ‘revolutionaries’ who put his own Polish family into exile and jeopardy. The ‘Western Eyes’ are those of an Englishman who reads and comments on Razumov’s journal – thereby creating another chance for Conrad to recount the events from a very complex perspective. Razumov achieves partial redemption as a result of his relationship with a good woman, but the ending, with faint echoes of Dostoyevski, is tragic for all concerned.
Buy the book from Amazon UK
Buy the book from Amazon US

Joseph Conrad links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.

More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales

Il Conde

September 18, 2013 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

Il Conde first appeared in Cassell’s Magazine in London (1908) and Hampton’s Magazine in New York (1909). It was later collected in A Set of Six, published in 1908 (UK) and 1915 (US). The other stories in this collection of Joseph Conrad’s work were The Informer, An Anarchist, Gaspar Ruiz, The Duel, and The Brute.

“Vedi Napoli e poi mori”

Il Conde – critical commentary

In his prefatory notes to A Set of Six Conrad outlines the genesis of his stories, putting his emphasis on the fact that they are based on true incidents:

In all of them the facts are inherently true, by which I mean that they are not only possible but that they have actually happened. For instance, the last story in the volume, the one I call Pathetic, whose first title is Il Conde (misspelt by-the-by) is an almost verbatim transcript of the tale told me by a very charming old gentleman whom I met in Italy.

It is curious (with over a hundred years’ hindsight) that he should think that the ‘real’ origins of the tale lend credibility (and even artistic merit) to what is not much more than an anecdote. It is indeed rather shocking if an elderly and cultivated man is held up at knife point and robbed by a university student from a wealthy family who is also connected to a Mafia-style gang. But since nothing further is made of this confrontation (and contradiction) it’s not clear what point is being made. The elderly man is so shocked he returns to somewhere in middle Europe – but that is all. Conrad goes on to say that the tale concerns a ‘problem’ – but then admits that he’s not sure what it is:

Anybody can see that it is something more than a verbatim report, but where he left off and where I began must be left to the acute discrimination of the reader who may be interested in the problem. I don’t mean to say that the problem is worth the trouble. What I am certain of, however, is that it is not to be solved, for I am not at all clear about it myself by this time.

The tale is an anecdote, a character sketch, an evocation of time and place, but not much more. It lacks the biting irony of An Outpost of Progress or the terrible themes of Falk and Amy Foster. We cannot expect every one of Conrad’s tales to be equally powerful, and it is fairly clear that his greatest literary strength lay as a novelist and a writer of novellas, not as an artist of the shorter literary forms.

Il Conde – study resources

A Set of Six – CreateSpace editions – Amazon UK

A Set of Six – CreateSpace editions – Amazon US

The Complete Works of Joseph Conrad – Kindle eBook

A Set of Six – eBook versions at Project Gutenberg

Joseph Conrad: A Biography – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Routledge Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Amazon UK

Notes on Life and Letters – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad – biographical notes

Il Conde – plot summary

An un-named narrator describes the Count he meets at his hotel in Naples. He is a cultivated, rich, and sympathetic character, yet the narrator does not know his name or where he is from. The narrator leaves for ten days to look after a friend who is ill. When he returns the Count tells him about an unpleasant experience.

The Count goes after dinner to listen to music played in a public garden. Afterwards he strolls on a darkened boulevard, where a man robs him at knife point. He gives him his money and watch, but refuses to give him his rings.

Afterwards, the Count retreats to a cafe, where he sees his attacker again at a nearby table. He asks a cigarette vendor for information and is told that the young man is a university student from a very good family and the head of a Camorra (Mafia-style gang). The young man threatens to pursue him further, so the Count decides to leave Naples, even though he believes that its climate is necessary for his health. The narrator sees him off on a train bound for Vienna.

Joseph Conrad – video biography

Principal characters

I	the un-named narrator
Il Conde	a cultivated traveller
—	a young man

Joseph Conrad’s writing

Manuscript page from Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad’s writing table

Other writing by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.

More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
Joseph Conrad complete tales

Joseph Conrad and Cinema

May 22, 2016 by Roy Johnson

film adaptations of Joseph Conrad’s novels and stories

Joseph Conrad and Cinema (literature and film) might seem an odd juxtaposition of genres, but in fact almost a hundred adaptations of Conrad’s works have been made for cinema and television. His work has also been transposed to works for opera and for television. The following selection was made on the basis of films which are currently available in DVD format.

There seem to be three theories of adaptation from prose narrative to cinema – just as there are three notions of translation from one language to another. The film critic Geoffrey Wagner described these as transposition, commentary, and analogy.

The first (transposition) is used to describe an attempt to make the cinematic adaptation of a literary text as accurate and as close to the original as possible in the language of film. This means that there will be no significant additions, deletions, or changes to the original.

The second (commentary) allows for the raw materials of a narrative to be rearranged or used as the basis for a re-interpretation of the basic story line. In this case the sequence of events in a drama might be given a different chronological arrangement, or its characters given new descriptions or motivations.

In the third (analogy) the source materials are used as the inspiration for a completely new creation which acts as an analogy or a metaphor of the original. In this case a story might be transposed to a different historical period or a different cinematic genre. The original will still be recognised, but it is being used for a different purpose.

Victory (novel 1913 – film 1996)

This was the first of Joseph Conrad’s works to be turned into a film when an American silent movie version was released in 1919. A second version appeared in 1930 produced by Paramount with the title Dangerous Paradise, which was one of the earliest films with a sound track recorded at sea. There was another Paramount version in 1940 directed by John Cromwell.

Coming from the Hollywood world of popular entertainment, it is not surprising that these three film versions focus their attention on the sentimental romantic link between a heroic protagonist (Heyst) and the threatened heroine (Alma) whom he rescues. The emphasis of the film versions is on exotic locations and a conventional love story. All three adaptations conclude with the very un-Conradian device of a happy ending – which completely destroys the bitter dramatic ironies in the events and personal tragedies of the original text. Later versions such as the 1996 adaptation below remain more faithful to the original plot.

Directed and adapted by Mark Peploe. Starring – Willem Dafoe (Axel Heyst), Sam Neil (Mr Jones), Rufus Sewell (Martin Ricardo), Irene Jacob (Alma), Simon Callow (Zangiacomo), Jean Yanne (Wilhelm Schomberg), and Mark Patterson (Captain Davidson). This version was filmed in Java.

Victory – DVD film adaptation – Amazon UK

Details of the film – at the Internet Movie Database

Victory – a tutorial and study guide

Victory – Oxford Classics- Amazon UK

Victory – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

The Secret Agent (novel 1907 – film 1936)

One of the most celebrated adaptations of a Conrad text is Alfred Hitchcock’s version of The Secret Agent, which was re-named Sabotage (1936) for cinema release in England. This was to distinguish it from Hitchcock’s other film Secret Agent based on the Ashenden stories by Somerset Maugham which was produced in the same year. When Sabotage was released two months later in the United States it was re-named yet again as The Woman Alone. This proved unpopular, so the original title was restored.

Hitchcock takes enormous liberties with the substance of Conrad’s deeply ironic political thriller: He invents a positive hero (the police sergeant, Ted); he creates a romantic liaison with the main female character Winnie Verloc; and he even gives the story a happy ending.

Hitchcock plays down the collusion that exists in the novel between government and anarchists, and the upper class society in which representatives of both groups circulate. And in a typical piece of self-reference, he transposes Verloc’s seedy newsagent’s shop (selling pornography) to a cinema.

Despite these changes, the film captures some of the tone of the original text – largely because Hitchcock, like Conrad, is fond of using irony – in his case visual juxtapositions that create a satirical author’s point of view on events – something with which Conrad’s text is drenched from start to finish.

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Screenplay by Charles Bennett. Starring – Sylvia Sidney (Winnie Verloc), Oscar Homulka (Adolf Verloc), John Loder (Sergeant Ted), and Desmond Tester (Stevie). Filmed at Gainsborough Studios, London.

Sabotage – Hitchcock’s 1936 film adaptation – Amazon UK

Details of the film – the Internet Movie Database

The Secret Agent – a tutorial and study guide

The Secret Agent – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

The Secret Agent – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

A 1996 version, written and directed by Christopher Hampton, stays reasonably close to the original story line, but despite an all-star (yet ill-assorted) cast the result is a less than convincing whole – which probably accounts for the film’s mediocre rating of 50% at Rotten Tomatoes.

Directed by Christopher Hampton, screenplay by Christopher Hampton, with music by Philip Glass. Starring – Bob Hoskins (Adolf Verloc), Patricia Arquette (Winnie Verloc), Gerard Depardieu (Ossipon), Jim Broadbent (Chief Inspector Heat), Eddie Izzard (Vladimir), Robin Williams (The Professor). Filmed in Ealing Studios and Greenwich, London.

The Secret Agent – 1996 film adaptation on DVD – Amazon UK

Heart of Darkness (novella 1902 – film 1979)

Without doubt the best known cinematic adaptation of Conrad’s work is
Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979), his version of Heart of Darkness. It is successful precisely because it is not a faithful reproduction of the original novella, but a very imaginative interpretation of it.

The film realization transforms events from Europe’s imperialist exploitation of the Belgian Congo to America’s war in Vietnam in the 1960s. Even so, it remains amazingly faithful to the original. The narrator Marlow becomes Captain Willard, who is sent on a mission to terminate (‘with extreme prejudice’) the command of rogue Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, who has gone over the border into Cambodia with a band of followers.

It is worth noting that the film exists in a number of different versions – because it was edited several times. Minor variations aside, the most significant alternative option is called Apocalypse Now – Redux. This extended version includes a long sequence that was cut from the original where Willard visits an old French colonial plantation. I have watched both versions several times, and in my opinion the inclusion of the French plantation episode slows down the film and retards its dramatic momentum.

The only other point of note is that the film was originally distributed with two separate endings. In one, Willard kills Kurtz then returns to his boat and calls in an air strike which will (presumably) destroy the encampment. In the other he merely switches off the radio that is trying to contact him, and he sails away, back down river.

Director Francis Ford Coppola. Screenplay by Coppola and John Milius. Starring – Marlon Brando (Colonel Kurtz), Robert Duval (Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore), Martin Sheen (Captain Willard), Dennis Hopper (Photo Journalist), Harrison Ford (Colonel Lucas), Sam Bottoms (Lance Johnson). Filmed in the Philippines.

Apocalypse Now – 1979 DVD film – Amazon UK

Details of the film – the Internet Movie Database

Heart of Darkness – a tutorial and study guide

Heart of Darkness – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Heart of Darkness – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

In 1939 Orson Welles planned to make a film version of Heart of Darkness, but the project ran over budget and ultimately was abandoned. Welles turned the adaptation into a work for radio, and the following year made Citizen Kane instead.

There is also a 1994 version by the English director Nicholas Roeg that stays reasonably close to the original narrative. This stars John Malkovich (Kurtz) and Tim Roth (Marlow), with James Fox in a supporting role. This adaptation was made for Ted Turner’s television network. Filmed in Belize and London, UK.

Heart of Darkness – 1994 DVD film – Amazon UK

Lord Jim (novel 1900 – film 1965)

This 1965 adaptation of Lord Jim by Richard Brooks turns the dark moral complexities of the original novel into an epic action-adventure story shot in wide-screen Technicolour. It also reduces the fragmented temporal arrangement of events into a simplified linear narrative, as well as blending some of the characters. There is also considerable simplification of the political and racial issues of the original narrative. Moreover, the central figure is transformed and loses all semblance of ambiguity. As the critic Gene M. Moore observes: ‘The Jim of the film is a conscious political activist in the style of the sixties, a determined man of action, quite unlike Conrad’s ‘romantic’ protagonist.’

Directed and adapted by Richard Brooks. Starring – Peter O’Toole (Jim), James Mason (Gentleman Brown), Curt Jurgens (Cornelius), Eli Wallach (The General), Jack Hawkins (Marlow), Dalia Lavi (The Girl), and Akim Tamiroff (Schomberg). Filmed in Hong Kong and Cambodia, with additional scenes in Shepperton Studios, London.

Lord Jim – DVD – Amazon UK

Details of the film – at the Internet Movie Database

Lord Jim – a tutorial and study guide

Lord Jim – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Lord Jim – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

An Outcast of the Islands (novel 1896 – film 1951)

This is highly regarded amongst film critics as an acceptable combination of a faithful account of the original text with a persuasive film in its own right. Director Carol Reed sticks closely to the plot of the original novel, although he completely changes the geographic locations of the action. He also disregards some of the racial details which are an important part of ethnic tensions in the original narrative.

However, the most glaring difference between the novel and its adaptation is that Reed only uses four of the book’s five parts. In the original text, the protagonist Willems is killed by his mistress the native girl Alssa when his wife Joanna suddenly arrives, whereas in the film Willems is merely banished to live in isolation. This weaker ending was probably a concession to the Hollywood Production Code which prevailed at the time for films shown in the USA. This was a set of moral guidelines (also known as the Hays Code) which specified what was and was not acceptable for on-screen viewing. These rules included forbidding the depiction of crimes that go unpunished.

Directed by Carol Reed, screenplay by William Fairchild, with music by Brian Easdale. Filmed in Sri Lanka and Shepperton Studios, London. Starring – Ralph Richardson (Captain Lingard), Trevor Howard (Peter Willems), Wendy Hiller (Mrs Almayer), Wilfred Hyde White (Mr Vinck), Kerima (Alssa). Filmed in Sri Lanka and Shepperton Studios, London.

An Outcast of the Islands – DVD film adaptation – Amazon UK

Details of the film – at Internet Movie Database

An Outcast of the Islands – a tutorial and study guide

An Outcast of the Islands – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

An Outcast of the Islands – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

Amy Foster (story 1901 – film 1997)

This is one of Conrad’s long short stories – some might call it a novella – which was adapted in 1997 by (Baroness) Beeban Kidron as a feature film (originally re-named Swept from the Sea). It tells the story of a poor economic migrant from Eastern Europe who is the sole survivor of a shipwreck in the English Channel. He has lost everything, is hungry, wretched, and knows no English. The local inhabitants regard him as a madman, shun him, and throw stones at him. He is befriended by Amy Foster and settles down with her to create a family. But what appears to be a tale of positive redemption turns into a grim parable of a pessimistic or even tragic view of the world.

Director: Beeban Kidron. Screenplay: Tim Willocks.. Starring – Vincent Perez (Yanko Gooral), Ian McKellan (Dr James Kennedy), Kathy Bates (Mrs Swaffer), Rachel Weisz (Amy Foster), Joss Ackland (Mr Swaffer), and Zoe Wannamaker (Mary Foster). British/American, Tapson Steel Films and Phoenix Pictures. Filmed in Cornwall, UK.

Amy Foster – DVD film adaptation – Amazon UK

Details of the film – at Internet Movie Database

Amy Foster – a tutorial and study guide

Amy Foster – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Amy Foster – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

Amy Foster – Kindle eBook (includes screenplay)

More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales

Joseph Conrad biography

September 18, 2009 by Roy Johnson

timeline of life, career, and literary works

1857. Joseph Conrad (full original name Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski) born December 3 in Berdichev (or vicinity) to Apollo Nalecz Korzeniowski and Evelina (Ewa) Bobrowska. Poland at that time is under the control of Russia.

1862. Conrad’s father exiled to Russia because of his political liberalism, accompanied by his wife and son.

1865. Conrad’s mother dies. Conrad taken into care of maternal uncle, Tadeusz Bobrowski.

1869. Conrad and his father return to Cracow. Father dies. Conrad sporadically attends school in Cracow.

1873. Leaves for a three-month-long stay in Switzerland and northern Italy. Announces his wish to have a career at sea, which the family resists.

1874. Leaves Cracow for Marseilles to begin life as a sailor on French ships.

1875. Apprentice on the Mont-Blanc, bound for Martinique.

1876-77. From January to July in Marseilles; from July to February 1877 on schooner Saint-Antoine to West Indies.

1877. Acquires (with three other men) the tartane, the Tremolino which carries arms illegally to the supporters of Don Carlos, the Spanish pretender. Conrad probably escaping from gambling debts accrued in Monte Carlo.

1878-79. Mounting financial problems. In February attempts suicide by shooting himself through the chest (which he later passed off as injury in a duel). Uncle Bobrowski pays off his debts and arranges for him to be transferred to England. On April 24 leaves Marseilles on British steamer Mavis. On June 18 sets foot in England at Lowestoft. Serves as ordinary seaman on coaster The Skimmer of the Sea.

1883. Passes mate’s examination on July 4. Meets uncle Bobrowski at Marienbad. Mate on the sailing ship Riversdale.

1884. Second mate on the Narcissus, bound from Bombay to Dunkirk.

1885-86. Second mate on the Tilkhurst; August 19, receives British certificate of naturalization. November 11, passes examination, receives his ‘Certificate of Competency as Master’. His first story, ‘The Black Mate’, submitted to Tit-Bits.

1887. First mate on Highland Forest. Hurt by a falling spar, hospitalized in Singapore (experience recalled in Lord Jim). Second mate on steamship Vidar (Singapore-Borneo).

1888. On Melita (bound for Bangkok), then his first command on the barque the Otago (Bangkok-Sydney-Mauritius-Port Adelaide). Experiences described in The Shadow-Line, Victory, The Secret Sharer. A Smile of Fortune, and other works.

1889. Summer in London; begins writing Almayer’s Folly.

1890. First trip to Poland since he left in 1874. In May he leaves for the Congo. Second in command, then in command of S. S. Roi de Belges.

1891-93. First mate on Torrens. English passenger (Jacques) reads the first nine chapters of Almayer’s Folly, offers encouragement; meets John Galsworthy aboard the ship. Visits uncle Bobrowski in Poland.

1893-94. Second mate on Adowa (London-Rouen-London). Ends his career as seaman on January 14.

1894. Uncle Bobrowski dies on January 29, 1894. In April Conrad sends Almayer’s Folly to T. Fisher Unwin.

1894-95. Writes An Outcast of the Islands.

The Complete Critical Guide to Joseph Conrad is a good introduction to Conrad criticism. It includes a potted biography, an outline of the stories and novels, and pointers towards the main critical writings – from the early comments by his contemporaries to critics of the present day. Also includes a thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist Conrad journals. These guides are very popular. Recommended.

1896. March 24, marries Jessie George.

1897. Completes The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’; friendship with R. B. Cunninghame Graham.

1898. Son Alfred Borys born January 14. In October moves to Petit Farm, Kent.

1899. In February completes Heart of Darkness.

1900. Finishes Lord Jim.

1904. Nostromo. Writes the memoir The Mirror of the Sea. Wife falls ill, and becomes practically an invalid.

1905. Spends four months in Europe.

1906. Spends two months in France. Second son John Alexander born August 2.

1907. Children ill in France. Returns to Pent Farm in August. The Secret Agent.

1908. A Set of Six (short stories).

1910. In June moves to Capel House, Kent. Seriously ill.

1911. Under Western Eyes.

1912. ‘Twixt Land and Sea, Tales.

1913-14. Chance. Writes Victory. Leaves for Poland in July 1914; meets Stefan Zeromski in Zakopane; caught by the war in August; escapes and returns to Capel House November 3.

1915. Victory. Within the Tides.

1916. Borys fights on the French front.

1917. The Shadow-Line. Writes prefaces for a new collected edition of his works.

1918. Borys, gassed and wounded, is hospitalized in Le Havre.

1919. The Arrow of Gold. Moves to Oswalds, Bishopbourne, near Canterbury, where he spends the last years of his life.

1920. The Rescue.

1921. Visits Corsica. Notes on Life and Letters.

1923. Visits New York (April-June). Reading from his Victory at home of Mrs. Arthur Curtiss James, May 10. The Secret Agent, Drama in Four Acts (adaptation of the novel). The Rover. Laughing Anne, a play (adaptation of “Because of the Dollars”).

1924. Jacob Epstein does Conrad’s bust. In May Conrad declines knighthood. Health deteriorates and he is bedridden. His wife is also ill. Both sons and Richard Curle are with them. Dies of heart attack 3 August. Buried in Canterbury.

1925. Suspense (incomplete). Tales of Hearsay.

1926. Last Essays.

1928. The Sisters (written in 1896; incomplete.)

1936. Jessie Conrad dies 6 December. Buried near her husband at Canterbury.

Joseph Conrad links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.

More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales

Joseph Conrad close reading

March 18, 2014 by Roy Johnson

how to read and analyse a text

In literary studies there are various types of close reading. It is possible and rewarding to scrutinise a text closely, keeping any number of its features in mind. These can reveal various layers of significance in the work which might not be apparent on a superficial reading. You might focus attention on the text’s –

language
meaning
structure
philosophy

The most advanced forms of close reading combine all these features in an effort to reveal the full and even hidden meanings in a work. The following tutorial shows a very simple form of close reading. It pays attention to the first two of these approaches – looking at the language that Conrad uses and how it is closely linked to what we know about the text.

This type of exercise can only be successful once the text has been read in its entirety. You need a grasp of the events and the story as a whole before it is possible to see how its meaning(s) are built up from small linguistic features of the narrative.

The Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov once observed ‘Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only re-read it’. What he meant by this apparently contradictory remark is that the first time we read a text we are busy absorbing information, and we cannot appreciate all the subtle connections there may be between its parts – because we don’t yet have the complete picture before us. Only when we read it for a second time (or even better, a third or fourth) are we in a position to assemble and compare the nuances of meaning and the significance of its details in relation to each other.

This is why the activity is called ‘close reading’. You should try to get used to the notion of reading and re-reading very carefully, scrupulously, and in great detail.

The extract which follows is the opening of Conrad’s early story An Outpost of Progress, first published in 1897. It deals with two European characters who have recently arrived at a trading station somewhere in central Africa. If you wish to read the complete story in conjunction with these tutorial notes, it is available free at Project Gutenberg.

An Outpost of Progress

An Outpost of Progress – the opening lines

There were two white men in charge of the trading station. Kayerts, the chief, was short and fat; Carlier, the assistant, was tall, with a large head and a very broad trunk perched upon a long pair of thin legs. The third man on the staff was a Sierra Leone nigger, who maintained that his name was Henry Price. However, for some reason or other, the natives down the river had given him the name of Makola, and it stuck to him through all his wanderings about the country. He spoke English and French with a warbling accent, wrote a beautiful hand, understood bookkeeping, and cherished in his innermost heart the worship of evil spirits. His wife was a negress from Loanda, very large and very noisy. Three children rolled about in sunshine before the door of his low, shed-like dwelling. Makola, taciturn and impenetrable, despised the two white men. He had charge of a small clay storehouse with a dried-grass roof, and pretended to keep a correct account of beads, cotton cloth, red kerchiefs, brass wire, and other trade goods it contained. Besides the storehouse and Makola’s hut, there was only one large building in the cleared ground of the station. It was built neatly of reeds, with a verandah on all the four sides. There were three rooms in it. The one in the middle was the living-room, and had two rough tables and a few stools in it. The other two were the bedrooms for the white men. Each had a bedstead and a mosquito net for all furniture. The plank floor was littered with the belongings of the white men; open half-empty boxes, torn wearing apparel, old boots; all the things dirty, and all the things broken, that accumulate mysteriously round untidy men. There was also another dwelling-place some distance away from the buildings. In it, under a tall cross much out of the perpendicular, slept the man who had seen the beginning of all this; who had planned and had watched the construction of this outpost of progress.

Close reading

01. ‘White men’ is significant because the story is about the exploitation of black Africans by white Europeans. And ‘in charge’ is mildly ironic because we rapidly learn that they are only nominally in charge. It is their African assistant Makola who really determines what goes on, whilst they are hopelessly incompetent.

02. The names ‘Kayerts’ and ‘Carlier’ tell us that the setting of the story is the Belgian Congo. Carlier is a French name, Kayerts is Flemish, and these are the two linguistic groups which comprise Belgium. The physical descriptions contrast the two men in a way that makes them slightly ridiculous, rather like the fat and thin man of comedy stereotypes. The term ‘perched’ reinforces this.

03. ‘Maintained’ suggests just the opposite – that Makola has given himself the name Henry Price because he wants to identify his interests with those of his European employers. Conrad’s use of the racist term ‘nigger’ would have been considered unremarkable in 1897 when he wrote the story.

04. The natives call him ‘Makola’ — and so does Conrad, which reinforces our interpretation of the previous sentence. His ‘wanderings’ suggest that he is experienced.

05. Makola speaks two foreign languages in addition to his own native African language and his wife’s, which would be different. He is also a skilled clerk. Thus he has absorbed European culture, in contrast to the two Europeans, who are completely incapable of absorbing his culture. Yet he still worships evil spirits. He has a foot in both cultures.

06. Loanda is on the coast of Angola, close to what was once called the ‘Slave Coast’. This is why it is ‘Mrs Price’ who understands what the slave traders are saying later in the story.

07. ‘Rolled about’ suggests that the children are at ease in their natural environment. ‘Shed-like’ tells us how poor their accommodation is.

08. ‘Impenetrable’ (a typically Conradian term) suggests that he keeps his feelings and motivation well hidden. It is a similar term to those which Conrad uses later to describe the topographical surroundings – ‘hopeless’ and ‘irresistible’. Such details contribute to why Africa in a moral sense defeats Europe in the story. ‘Despised’ however is a key insight into Makola’s judgement and feelings: this points to the element of racial conflict in the story.

09. We notice that the ‘trade goods’ are an assortment of cheap rubbish. They are being traded for ivory, which is a precious commodity in Europe. The Africans are therefore being cheated by the Europeans. But ‘pretended’ tells us that Makola might be engaged in a little cooking-of-the-books on his own account.

10. ‘Only one large building’: this is a very undeveloped trading station, and its isolation is emphasised.

11. ‘Neatly’ and ‘verandah’ contrast sharply with Makola’s ‘shed-like’ dwelling. In other words, the Europeans have the better accommodation.

12. The furniture is sparse, but the two men have a room each.

13. The mosquito net would be very important: they are close to the equator , and therefore a long way from their European homeland.

14. Notice how the two men do not know how to look after themselves. The floor is ‘littered’ with their ‘broken’ and ‘dirty’ goods. And how inappropriate some of those goods are: they have brought ‘town wearing apparel’ when they are in the tropics.

15. ‘Dwelling place’ is another irony of Conrad’s as the narrator of the story. What he is referring to is the grave of the first station chief who has died of fever. So, Africa has already killed off one representative of Europe when the story opens.

16. Conrad piles on more grim humour with the expression that the first director ‘slept’ under the cross – an ironic euphemism given that the director is dead. There is also a neat structural link here – because this is also the location of the story’s ending, where Kayerts will commit suicide, hanging himself on the cross.

Studying Fiction is an introduction to the basic concepts and the language you will need for studying prose fiction. It explains the elements of literary analysis one at a time, then shows you how to apply them. The guidance starts off with simple issues of language, then progresses to more complex literary criticism.The volume contains stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Katherine Mansfield, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, and Charles Dickens. All of them are excellent tales in their own right. The guidance on this site was written by the same author.
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Joseph Conrad’s writing table

Joseph Conrad – video biography

Other writing by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad web links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.

More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales

Joseph Conrad critical bibliography

June 30, 2010 by Roy Johnson

selected literary criticism and commentary

Amar Acheraiou, Joseph Conrad and the Reader, London: Macmillan, 2009.

Jacques Berthoud, Joseph Conrad: The Major Phase, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

Muriel Bradbrook, Joseph Conrad: Poland’s English Genius, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941

Harold Bloom (ed), Joseph Conrad (Bloom’s Modern Critical Views, New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2010.

Martin Bock and Robert Hampson, Joseph Conrad and Psychological Medicine, Texas Tech Press, 2002.

Hillel M. Daleski, Joseph Conrad: The Way of Dispossession, London: Faber, 1977

Stephen Donovan, Joseph Conrad and Popular Culture, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Wilfred S. Dowden, Joseph Conrad: The Imagined Style, Vanderbilt University Press, 1970.

Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan, Joseph Conrad and the Modern Temper, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Aaron Fogel, Coercion to Speak: Conrad’s Poetics of Dialogue, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1985.

Adam Gillon and Raymond Brebach, Joseph Conrad: Comparative Essays, Texas Tech Press, 1993.

John Dozier Gordon, Joseph Conrad: The Making of a Novelist, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1940.

Albert J. Guerard, Conrad the Novelist, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1958.

Robert Hampson, Joseph Conrad: Betrayal and Identity, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992.

Richard J. Hand, The Theatre of Joseph Conrad: Reconstructed Fictions, London: Macmillan, 2005.

G.G. Harpham, One of Us: Mastery of Joseph Conrad, Chicago University Press, 1997..

Jeremy Hawthorn, Joseph Conrad: Language and Fictional Self-Consciousness, London: Edward Arnold, 1979.

Jeremy Hawthorn, Joseph Conrad: Narrative Technique and Ideological Commitment, London: Edward Arnold, 1990.

Jeremy Hawthorn, Sexuality and the Erotic in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad, London: Continuum, 2007.

Owen Knowles, The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Jakob Lothe, Joseph Conrad: Voice, Sequence, History, Genre, Ohio State University Press, 2008.

Gustav Morf, The Polish Shades and Ghosts of Joseph Conrad, New York: Astra, 1976.

Ross Murfin, Conrad Revisited: Essays for the Eighties, Tuscaloosa, Ala: University of Alabama Press, 1985.

Jeffery Myers, Joseph Conrad: A Biography, Cooper Square Publishers, 2001.

Zdzislaw Najder, Joseph Conrad: A Life, Camden House, 2007.

Lindsay Newman and Yves Hervouet, The French Face of Joseph Conrad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Kieron O’Hara, Joseph Conrad Today, Imprint Academic, 2007.

George A. Panichas, Joseph Conrad: His Moral Vision, Mercer University Press, 2005.

John G. Peters, The Cambridge Introduction to Joseph Conrad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

James Phelan, Joseph Conrad: Voice, Sequence, History, Genre, Ohio State University Press, 2008.

Richard J. Ruppel, Homosexuality in the Life and Work of Joseph Conrad: Love Between the Lines, Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1966.

Edward Said, Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography, Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1966.

Norman Sherry, Joseph Conrad: The Critical Heritage, London: Routledge, 1997.

Allan H. Simmons, Joseph Conrad: (Critical Issues), London: Macmillan, 2006.

Allan H. Simmons, Joseph Conrad in Context, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

J.H. Stape, The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

John Stape, The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad, Arrow Books, 2008.

Peter Villiers, Joseph Conrad: Master Mariner, Seafarer Books, 2006.

Ian Watt, Conrad in the Nineteenth Century, London: Chatto and Windus, 1980.

Cedric Watts, Joseph Conrad: (Writers and their Work), London: Northcote House, 1994.

Andrea White, Joseph Conrad and the Adventure Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Joseph Conrad links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.

More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales

Joseph Conrad criticism

April 22, 2015 by Roy Johnson

annotated bibliography of criticism and comment

Joseph Conrad criticism is a bibliography of critical comment on Conrad and his works, with details of each publication and a brief description of its contents. The details include active web links to Amazon where you can buy the books, often in a variety of formats – new, used, and as Kindle eBooks. The listings are arranged in alphabetical order of author.

The list includes new books and older publications which may now be considered rare. It also includes print-on-demand or Kindle versions of older texts which are much cheaper than the original. Others (including some new books) are often sold off at rock bottom prices. Whilst compiling these listings I bought a copy of Jeremy Hawthorn’s early study Joseph Conrad: Language and Fictional Self-Consciousness for one penny.

Joseph Conrad and the Reader – Amar Acheraiou, London: Macmillan, 2009. This challenging study proposes new approaches to modern literary criticism and is fully devoted to Conrad’s relation to the reader, visual theory and authorship.

Joseph Conrad: The Major Phase – Jacques Berthoud, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978. A demonstration of the clarity, consistency, and depth of thought evident in Conrad’s novels written during the first decade of the twentieth century.

Joseph Conrad: Poland’s English Genius – Muriel Bradbrook, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941. A brief study of the life and work with stories considered in three main themes: the wonders of the deep, the hollow men, and recollections in tranquillity.

Joseph Conrad (Bloom’s Modern Critical Views) – Harold Bloom (ed), New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2010. A new selection of contemporary critical commentary, plus a bibliography and a chronology of Conrad’s life.

An Autobiography of Joseph Conrad – Stephen Brennan, Skyhorse Publishing, 2014. Scenes from Conrad’s memoirs and non-fictional writing stitched together to showcase some of the more exciting and trying times in the novelist’s life.

Joseph Conrad and Psychological Medicine – Martin Bock and Robert Hampson, Texas Tech Press, 2002. Revises our understanding of Conrad’s life, and rethinks the dominant themes of his work in light of pre-Freudian medical psychology.

Joseph Conrad: The Way of Dispossession – Hillel M. Daleski, Holmes & Meier, 1977.

Joseph Conrad and Popular Culture – Stephen Donovan, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. An analysis of Conrad’s relation to Victorian and early twentieth century popular culture. Illustrated summaries of the development of specific popular cultural forms—songs, early cinema, magazines, advertising, and tourism—underpin fresh readings of Conrad’s central works.

Joseph Conrad: The Imagined Style – Wilfred S. Dowden, Vanderbilt University Press, 1970. Analyzes the evolution of Conrad’s style and vision of imagery through a study of his novels and short stories.

Joseph Conrad and the Modern Temper – Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. A study that relates Conrad’s work to the crisis of modernity in the late nineteenth century, and discusses ‘faultlines’ – ambiguities and apparent aesthetic ruptures – in nine of the major novels and novellas.

Coercion to Speak: Conrad’s Poetics of Dialogue – Aaron Fogel, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1985. Fogel shows how Conrad shaped ideas and events and interpreted character and institutions by means of dialogues representing not free exchange but various forms of forcing another to respond.

Joseph Conrad: Comparative Essays – Adam Gillon and Raymond Brebach, Texas Tech Press, 1993. Gillon examines the affinities between Conrad’s descriptive art and both painting and film.

Joseph Conrad: The Making of a Novelist – John Dozier Gordon, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1940.

Conrad, Language, and Narrative – Michael Greaney, Cambridge University Press, 2001. Challenges old assumptions and engages current controversies in revelatory and rich close readings.

Conrad the Novelist – Albert J. Guerard, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1958.

Joseph Conrad: Betrayal and Identity – Robert Hampson, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1992. Traces the development of Conrad’s conception of identity through the three phases of his career: the self in isolation, the self in society, and the sexualised self.

The Theatre of Joseph Conrad: Reconstructed Fictions – Richard J. Hand, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

One of Us: Mastery of Joseph Conrad – Geoffrey Galt Harpham, Chicago University Press, 1997. Conrad has traditionally been viewed as an admirable master: master mariner, storyteller, and writer. But his reputation has been linked in recent years to the negative masteries of racism, imperialism, and patriarchy.

Joseph Conrad: Language and Fictional Self-Consciousness – Jeremy Hawthorn, London: Edward Arnold, 1979. This book explores the interplay between technical accomplishment and artistic conception in Conrad’s work, addressing the question why some of Conrad’s novels are acknowledged masterpieces and others ‘incomplete successes’.

Joseph Conrad: Narrative Technique and Ideological Commitment – Jeremy Hawthorn, London: Hodder Arnold, 1992. This study argues that technical skills can be refined but these have to be complemented by a larger vision and commitment – “a conception of the whole” – otherwise it does not result in great art.

Sexuality and the Erotic in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad – Jeremy Hawthorn, London: Continuum, 2007. This book will open Conrad’s fiction to readings enriched by the insights of critics and theorists associated with Gender Studies and Post-colonialism.

Essays on Conrad – Frank Kermode (ed), Cambridge University Press, 2000. A series of critical studies written by Ian Watt, and edited by Frank Kermode.

The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Owen Knowles, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Background study materials to all the major works – chronologies, critical essays, maps, bibliographies, and the development of Conrad’s critical reputation.

Conrad’s Narrative Method – Jakob Lothe, Ohio State University Press, 2008. This structuralist study of narrative is the first book-length attempt to apply recent developments in critical theory and practice to the whole canon of Conrad’s works.

Joseph Conrad – Tim Middleton, London: Routledge, 2006. A student’s introductory guide to Conrad, his life and work, with a chronology and suggestions for further reading

The Polish Shades and Ghosts of Joseph Conrad – Gustav Morf, New York: Astra Books, 1976.

Conrad Revisited: Essays for the Eighties – Ross Murfin, Tuscaloosa, Ala: University of Alabama Press, 1985.

Joseph Conrad: A Biography – Jeffery Myers, Cooper Square Press, 2001. This claims to be the definitive biography – but some readers disagree.

Joseph Conrad: A Life – Zdzislaw Najder, Camden House, 2007. This too is tipped as the definitive biography, because Najder’s command of English, French, Polish, and Russian allowed him access to a greater variety of sources than any other biographer, and his Polish background and his own experience as an exile have afforded him a unique affinity for Conrad and his milieu.

The French Face of Joseph Conrad – Lindsay Newman and Yves Hervouet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. This study presents the French face of Conrad’s work, and demonstrates that his knowledge of the French language and its literature (which preceded his acquisition of the English language) has profound implications for the study of the novels.

Joseph Conrad Today – Kieron O’Hara, Imprint Academic, 2007. Argues that Conrad’s scepticism, pessimism, emphasis on the importance and fragility of community, and the difficulties of escaping our history are important tools for understanding the political world in which we live.

Joseph Conrad: His Moral Vision – George A. Panichas, Mercer University Press, 2005. The book shows that morality in Conrad’s work is not reducible to an absolute category but must be apprehended in the forms of both moral crises and the possibility of moral recovery enacted in their complexity and tensions.

The Cambridge Introduction to Joseph Conrad – John G. Peters, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. This introduction is aimed at students coming to Conrad’s work for the first time. It covers Conrad’s themes of travel, exploration, and racial and ethnic conflict.

A Historical Guide to Joseph Conrad – John G. Peters, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Original essays showcase the abundance of historical material Conrad drew upon, and how he mined his early life as a sailor to create scathing indictments of colonialism and capitalist cupidity.

– Joseph Conrad: Voice, Sequence, History, Genre – James Phelan, Ohio State University Press, 2008.

Homosexuality in the Life and Work of Joseph Conrad: Love Between the Lines – Richard J. Ruppel, London: Routledge, 2009. Conrad’s recurrent bouts of neurasthenia, his difficult courtships, late marriage, and frequent expressions of misogyny can all be attributed to the fact that Conrad was emotionally, temperamentally, and, perhaps, even erotically more comfortable with men than women.

Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography – Edward Said, Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1966. Said argues that Conrad, who set his fiction in exotic locations like East Asia and Africa, projects political dimensions in his work that mirror a colonialist preoccupation with ‘civilizing’ native peoples.

Joseph Conrad: The Critical Heritage – Norman Sherry, London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1973. A collection of reviews and essays tracing the development of Conrad’s critical reputation as a novelist.

Joseph Conrad: (Critical Issues) – Allan H. Simmons, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. First-time readers of Conrad are provided with in-depth contexts for appreciating a writer whose work is often challenging, while readers already familiar with Conrad’s fiction will find new perspectives with which to view it.

Joseph Conrad In Context – Allan H. Simmons, Cambridge University Press, 2014. This book examines the biographical, historical, cultural and political contexts that fashioned Conrad’s works. Each short chapter covers a specific theme in relation to Conrad’s life and his fiction.

The New Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – J.H. Stape, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Thirteen chapters offer diverse perspectives on emergent areas of interest, including canon formation, postcolonialism, gender, critical reception and adaptation.

The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad – John Stape, Arrow Books, 2008. A biography that puts its emphasis on Conrad’s life, rather than his work.

Joseph Conrad: Master Mariner – Peter Villiers, Seafarer Books, 2006. A biographical study which traces Conrad’s career as a sailor, and looks at the places he visited in relation to their depiction in his stories and novels.

Conrad in the Nineteenth Century – Ian Watt, London: Chatto and Windus, 1980. Close readings of the novels, full of quotes, detailed analysis and an acute explanation of the major themes of Conrad’s narratives.

Joseph Conrad: (Writers and their Work) – Cedric Watts, London: Northcote House, 1994. Explores Conrad’s importance and influence as a moral, social, and political commentator

Joseph Conrad and the Adventure Tradition – Andrea White, Cambridge University Press, 2008. A study showing how Conrad demythologized and disrupted the imperial subject constructed in earlier writing, and arguing that the very complexity of Conrad’s work provided an alternative, and more critical, means of evaluating the experience of empire.

More on Joseph Conrad
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An Outpost of Progress – the opening lines

Close reading

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annotated bibliography of criticism and comment

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