Joseph Conrad
1) Lord Jim
Author
Series
Formats
Description
When "Lord Jim" first appeared in 1900, many took Joseph Conrad to task for couching an entire novel in the form of an extended conversation - a ripping good yarn, if you like (one critic in The Academy complained that the narrator 'was telling that after-dinner story to his companions for eleven solid hours'). Conrad defended his method, insisting that people really do talk for that long, and listen as well. In fact his chatty masterwork requires...
Author
Series
Description
Marlow, the story's narrator, tells his friends of an experience in the British Congo where he once ran a river steamer for a trading company. He tells of the ivory traders' cruel exploitation of the natives there. Chief among these is a greedy and treacherous European named Kurtz, a man who has used savagery to obtain semi-divine power over the natives. While Marlow tries to get Kurtz back down the river, Kurtz tries to justify his actions and motions,...
3) Nostromo
Author
Series
Formats
Description
"Conrad's pessimistic worldview colors this novel depicting the brutality of Latin American politics and the tragedies that inevitably ensue."
4) Victory
Author
Formats
Description
Raised by a single Swedish philosopher, Axel Heyst inherits his father's pessimistic view of society. As a child, he is taught about all the dark inclinations of humankind, warping his mind. Axel struggles with these beliefs and the atmosphere of the environment in which he grew up. Because of this, he has a mix of complicated feelings when his father passes away. He decides to leave London and travel the world, which lead him to both adventures and...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
Almayer, an immigrant living on the Malayan continent with his native wife and his daughter, Nina, dreams of riches, and so pursues hidden gold mines and begins construction on a mansion to impress the British forces that he believes are coming to conquer the region. However, none of Almayer's schemes come through for him, and his recklessness results in a desperate situation for him and his family.
Almayer's Folly was Joseph Conrad's first novel....
Author
Formats
Description
Growing up as an orphan, Razumou adopted the belief that all of Russia was his family, a sentiment that he carries into his higher education. Because of this, when talks of revolution start arising in Russia, Razumou decides to stay neutral. However, this becomes increasingly difficult when most of his classmates start to express their ardent support for a revolution. Still, Razumou decides not to take a stand on either side. Since he feels all of...
7) Typhoon
Author
Series
Formats
Description
Captain MacWhirr cannot fathom anything outside the facts of his own life. His first mate, Mr. Jukes, is the perfect contrast as an imaginative man prone to speaking in figurative language. Though they are opposites, MacWhirr and Jukes respect each other and run a tight ship, until the crew notices the barometer predicting a serve storm. Jukes and the crew suggest alternate paths to MacWhirr, but he is unconvinced. Since MacWhirr has not experienced...
Author
Formats
Description
A young sea captain tests his mettle off the coast of Siam in this nineteenth-century psychological tale from the author of Heart of Darkness. When his sailing ship is anchored in the Gulf of Siam-now Thailand-a first-time sea captain questions his ability to command. Anxious and eager for his crew to like him, he takes the first shift of the night watch. Alone in the dark, he encounters a mysterious man swimming alongside the vessel. The captain...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
Peter Willems is down on his luck. The Dutch clerk has been fired for embezzlement from his job in the Indonesian port city of Makassar, and his scornful wife has abandoned him. Willems' despair lifts after an encounter with Tom Lingard, a sea captain who operates a remote trading post. Lingard hires the drifter to act as his agent, entrusting Willems with knowledge of the secret route across dangerous waters to the post. Once installed in his new...
10) The Shadow-Line
Author
Formats
Description
A new captain must lead his crew to safety and face his own internal struggles as he works to overcome disrespect, insanity, and coming-of-age all while sailing on an unforgiving sea.
There is an invisible line that divides life into a before and after-adolescence and adulthood. The unnamed narrator of The Shadow Line is painfully aware of this, but is unsure where the line lies in his life. He recalls a number of rash decisions he has made, some...
11) Tales of Unrest
Author
Formats
Description
Featuring five works of short fiction from the critically acclaimed author, Joseph Conrad, Tales of Unrest is a fascinating exploration of human struggle and philosophy. Karain: A Memory adopts elements of a traditional ghost story, setting an eerie mood as it explores the duality common among colonial and post-colonial people. The Idiots depict a family driven to murder after a couple stains to raise their intellectually disabled children. With the...
12) The secret agent
Author
Formats
Description
In The Secret Agent, a Soho shopkeeper is a member of a terrorist cell, supported by a foreign power, plotting to undermine the English state by means of a bomb plot. Published in 1907, it is considered to be among Conrad's finest novels, written at a time when he was moving away from the seafaring themes which he was known for. Prescient in its depictions of terrorism and political instability, it has become mandatory reading for anyone wishing to...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
Set in the islands of the Malay Archipelago, Victory tells the story of a disillusioned Swede, Axel Heyst, who rescues Lena, a young English musician, from the clutches of a brutish German hotel owner. Seeking refuge at Heyst's remote island retreat on Samburan, the couple is soon besieged by three villains dispatched by the enraged hotelier. The arrival on the island paradise of this trio of friends sets off a terrifying series of events that ultimately...
14) Chance
Author
Formats
Description
Young Flora de Barral, is the daughter of a man whose sudden bankruptcy and conviction, have forced her to face a harsh and uncertain reality. Chance is a clever examination of risk and the impact of unforeseen circumstance.
Chance features Conrad's signature narration as it describes the experiences of major and minor characters, including Flora de Barral. She is a young woman who has suffered the consequences of her father's many misdeeds. This...
Author
Formats
Description
Chance (1914) was the first of Conrad's novels to bring him popular success and it holds a unique place among his works. It tells the story of Flora de Barral, a vulnerable and abandoned young girl who is "like a beggar, without a right to anything but compassion." After her bankrupt father is imprisoned, she learns the harsh fact that a woman in her position "has no resources but in herself." Her only means of action is to be what she is. Flora's...
16) The Rover
Author
Formats
Description
A novel of naval life in Napoleonic France. After forty years of piracy on Eastern seas, Citizen Peyrol returns to his native France, a country now ravaged and scarred by revolution and war. Looking for peace in which to end his days, he withdraws to a safe harbor in a remote farmhouse on Escampobar Peninsula, which looks out to the distant Mediterranean, where the lovely Arlette lives with her aunt and the revolutionary Scevola. But the arrival of...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
"This absurdist story is noted for its adept characterizations, melodramatic irony, and psychological intrigue. 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. Adolf Verloc is a languid Eastern European secret agent posing as a London shop...
18) The Rescue
Author
Series
Description
Captain Tom Lingard is on his way to help his friends, a Malay prince and princess, reclaim their stolen land when he gets distracted by a marooned yacht. Lingard feels obliged to help his fellow Europeans out of their plight - and he's increasingly attracted to Edith Travers, the married woman on board - but his rescue of the pleasure boat and its passengers plunges the captain deep into a dangerous vortex of local politics.One of Conrad's less familiar...
Author
Formats
Description
"Heart of Darkness follows the story of Charlie Marlow's time working on the Congo River. In his attempts to aid Mr. Kurtz, the chief of the Inner Station, Marlow is confronted with the cruel realities of European imperialism in Africa."
"This collection includes another five of Conrad's incomparable tales of adventure..."
Author
Description
All of author Joseph Conrad's works have an air of loneliness and isolation within the plot. This is now thought to be reflective of the author's life as a Polish immigrant living and writing at the height of the British Empire. His prose strikes a chord that resonates deep within the reader, leaving a feeling of immense despondency. Yet with his deep affinity for the melancholy, Conrad was also a highly skilled prose writer. His words allow the reader...