Jim, first mate on board the Patna, is a simple and sensitive young man who dreams of becoming a hero. But when the Patna threatens to sink, Jim takes the cowardly way out and jumps clear. His unbearable guilt and shame at having violated the unwritten moral code of the sea lead him to become an exile in a remote Malay state.
Nostromo, published in 1904, is one of Conrad's finest works. Nostromo - though one hundred years old - says as much about today's Latin America as any of the finest recent accounts of that region's turbulent political life. Insistently dramatic in its storytelling, spectacular in its recreation of the subtropical landscape, this picture of an insurrectionary society and the opportunities it provides for moral corruption gleams on every page with its author's dry, undeceived, impeccable intelligence.
Marlow, a seaman, tells of a journey up the Congo. His goal is the troubled European and ivory trader Kurtz. Worshipped and feared by invaders as well as natives, Kurtz has become a godlike figure, his presence pervading the jungle like a thick, obscuring mist. As his boat labours upstream, Marlow finds his faith in civilization crumbling.
Penguin inaugurates a series of revised editions of Conrad's finest works, with new introductions
In a corrupt London underworld of criminals, terrorists, and fanatics, Mr. Verloc is assigned to plant a bomb. The tragic repercussions for his family show how Conrad's ironic voice is concerned not with politics but with the terrible fates of ordinary people.
In these four stories, written between 1900 and 1902, Joseph Conrad bid gradual farewell to his adventurous life at sea and began to confront the more daunting complexities of life on land in the twentieth century. In 'Typhoon' Conrad reveals, in the steadfast courage of an undemonstrative captain and the imaginative readiness of his young first mate, the differences between instinct and intelligence in a partnership vital to human survival. 'Falk', the companion sea-story, contrasts, as Conrad once put it, 'common sentimentalism with the frank standpoint of a more or less primitive man', a man with a conscience, however, about the girl he desires. In one of the 'land-stories' Conrad explores the utter isolation of an East European emigrant in England; in the other, the plight of a woman ironically trapped by the unwitting alliance of two retired widowers - each blind in his own way.
The masterpiece of Joseph Conradyes'>#8217;s later years, the autobiographical short novel The ShadowLine depicts a young man at a crossroads in his life, facing a desperate crisis that marks the yes'>#8220;shadowlineyes'>#8221; between youth and maturity.This brief but intense story is a dramatically fictionalized account of Conradyes'>#8217;s first command as a young sea captain trapped aboard a becalmed, feverwracked, and seemingly haunted ship. With no wind in sight and his crew disabled by malaria, the narrator discovers that the medicine necessary to save the sick men is missing and its absence has been deliberately concealed. Meanwhile, his increasingly frightened first mate is convinced that the malignant ghost of the previous captain has cursed them. Suspenseful, atmospheric, and deceptively simple, Conradyes'>#8217;s tale of the sea reflects the complex themes of his most famous novels, Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness. From the Trade Paperback edition.
A wonderful volume of Conrad's short fiction, reissued alongside the new film The Secret Sharer. This volume of Conrad's short works explores a vast array of human experience in a variety of settings across the globe, from the sea to the colonial world, from the Far East and Africa to Europe. 'The Nigger of the "Narcissus"' shows life on the 'small planet' of a ship threatened by storms and anarchy, while 'Youth' and 'The Secret Sharer' portray men at sea confronting turning points in their lives. 'The Informer' reveals anarchy and activism in London, 'Il Conde' depicts a secret double life in Naples and 'The Duel' dramatizes conflicts and obsession in Napoleon's army. All show Conrad to be a continuously experimental writer, ranging across time and place and constantly reinventing the nature of storytelling. This volume includes: - The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' - Youth, A Narrative - The Secret Sharer - The Lagoon - An Outpost of Progress - The Idiots - The Informer - Il Conde - The Duel Joseph Conrad was born in the Ukraine in 1857 and grew up under Tsarist autocracy. In 1874 he travelled to Marseilles, where he served in French merchant vessels before joining a British ship in 1878 as an apprentice. In 1886 he obtained British nationality. Eight years later he left the sea to devote himself to writing, publishing his first novel, Almayer's Folly , in 1895. The following year he settled in Kent, where he produced within fifteen years such classics as Youth, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Typhoon, Nostromo, The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes . He continued to write until his death in 1924. Gail Fraser (introducer), author of Interweaving Patterns in the Works of Joseph Conrad (1988), has also written on Conrad's short fiction for The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad (1996) and Conradiana: A Journal of Joseph Conrad Studies . Allan Simmons (co-editor) is author of Joseph Conrad (2006). J.H. Stape (co-editor) is the author of The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad ( 1996).
'Then, on a fine moonlight night, all the rats left the ship.' Five men sit around a mahogany table, drinking claret. As the wine loosens their tongues, one tells a story from his youth, recounting the strange voyage of the doomed ship Judea. Inspired by Conrad's own experiences at sea, Youth is a haunting tale about ill omens, the passing of time and the making of a man.
A great novelist of the sea, a poet of the tropics, a critic of empire and analyst of globalization, a harbinger of the modern spy novel, an unparalleled observer of the moments in which people are stripped of their illusions-Joseph Conrad is one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. This revised edition of The Portable Conrad features the best known and most enduring of Conrad's works, including The Secret Agent, Heart of Darkness, and The Nigger of the "Narcissus," as well as shorter tales like "Amy Forster" and "The Secret Sharer," a selection of letters, and his observations on the sinking of the Titanic.
The volume includes: 'Youth'; 'The Secret Sharer'; 'The Lagoon'; 'An Outpost of Progress'; 'Il Conde'; 'The Duel'. The intention is a range of settings - we move from the sea to the colonial world, the Far East and Africa to England and then the Continent.
