Series: Classics

Under Western Eyes traces a sequence or error, guilt, and expiation. Its composition placed such demands upon Conrad that he suffered a serious breakdown upon its completion. It is by common critical consent one of his finest achievements. Bomb-throwing assassins, political repression and revolt, emigre revolutionaries infiltrated by a government spy: much of Under Western Eyes (1911) is more topical than we might wish. Set in tsarist Russia and in Geneva, its concern with perennial issues of human responsibility gives it a lasting moral force. The contradictory demands placed upon men and women by the social and political convulsions of the modern age have never been more revealingly depicted. Joseph Conrad personally felt no sympathy with either Russians or revolutionaries. None the less his portrayal of both in Under Western Eyes is dispassionate and disinterested. Through the Western eyes of his narrator we are given a sombre but not entirely pessimistic view of the human dilemmas which are born of oppression and violence.

The Nigger of the "Narcissus"

by Joseph Conrad

Published December 1955

Corrections and emendations have been made on the basis of a thorough collation of all extant versions of the novel. The text is annotated and is followed by a detailed Textual Appendix consisting of materials on the textual history and present text, a list of textual variants, a glossary of nautical terms, illustrations showing details essential to an understanding of the novel, and an essay written especially for this edition by Denis Murphy, explaining the seamanship used during the storm in Chapter Three.

"Backgrounds and Sources" begins with Conrad's "Preface," which originally appeared as an afterword in the fifth magazine installment of the novel but was suppressed in the early book editions. The "Preface" is accompanied by a Textual History and Textual Notes prepared by Thomas Lavoie, and a critical essay by Ian Watt.

Also provided are Conrad's preface "To my American Readers" (1914) as well as extracts from letters and essays in which Conrad comments on the ship and the story, and biographical pieces by Edward Garnett (Conrad's informal literary agent and advisor) and G. Jean-Aubry (his first formal biographer). The section closes with an essay by Gerald Morgan, written for this edition, about the actual ship Narcissus and Conrad's connection to her.

"Contemporary Reviews" is followed by critical essays (some written especially for this edition) by Albert Guerard, Ian Watt, Norris W. Yates, Gerald Morgan, Donald T. Torchiana, John E. Saveson, Sanford Pinsker, Robert Foulke, William W. Bonney, John Howard Weston, Paul L. Wiley, and Eugene B. Redmond

Lord Jim

by Joseph Conrad

Published 1 January 1899

Lord Jim (1900): Jim is one of Conrad's most complex creations, and Conrad explores, along the vast horizon of this gorgeous novel, the phenomena of shame, guilt, retribution -- and redemption. How right it is for our times!

Originally published in 1904, Nostromo is considered by many to be Conrad's supreme achievement. Set in the imaginary South American republic of Costaguana, the novel reveals the effects of unbridled greed and imperialist interests on many different lives. V.S. Pritchett wrote, "Nostromo is the most strikingly modern of Conrad's novels. It is pervaded by a profound, even morbid sense of insecurity which is the very spirit of our age."

Nostromo #

by Joseph Conrad

Published 1 January 1904

Nostromo is one of the great novels in world literature. It imaginatively recreates the political, economic, and military history of a Latin American country through a remarkable complex of personal stories. Conrad's dazzling switches of viewpoint and chronology ensure that the reader is embroioled in the stress and passion at the core of each moment of his characters' lives.

The Shadow Line

by Joseph Conrad

Published 1 January 1917

The Shadow-Line, the story of the trials of a young Captain on a shop, is the masterpiece of Conrad's final creative period.

'Twixt Land and Sea

by Joseph Conrad

Published December 1948

New texts of Joseph Conrad's modern classic 'The Secret Sharer' and of two other tales appear in this edition of 'Twixt Land and Sea with numerous words, sentences, and entire paragraphs restored from Conrad's manuscripts and typescripts. Written while he was working on Under Western Eyes, these stories, when collected together in 1912, marked the turning point in Conrad's professional fortunes that Chance would soon confirm. Published for the first time as Conrad meant them to be, these authoritative texts are accompanied by a new Introduction that discusses their sources, composition, and publication, and their reception up to our time. The Notes explain nautical, geographical, and historical references and are supplemented by diagrams, maps, and other illustrations. A textual essay and apparatus examine the revisions, excisions, divisions, and censorship the tales underwent, which till now have been reflected in editions unduly trusted by countless readers.

An Outcast of the Islands

by Joseph Conrad

Published December 1949

An Outcast of the Islands (1896), Conrad's second novel, is a tale of intrigue in an eastern setting. Love and death are the major players in this parable of human frailty - the story of a man unable to understand others and fated never to possess his own soul. Peter Willems, a clerk in Macassar, granted a `second chance' at a remote river trading post, falls ever more hopelessly into traps set by himself and others. The pawn of Babalatchi, the one-eyed schemer of power politics, and of the rich Abdulla, who uses Willems to increase his own wealth, his fate is sealed by his lover, A "issa, and by Almayer, an embittered fellow-countryman. The novel is a relentless expos 'e of individual illusion and desire, and a dissection of the futile egotisms and petty corruption at the base of all political and social organizations. This book is intended for students of English literature; those taking courses in modern fiction, the modern British novel; images of the Third World; general readers.

Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent

by Joseph Conrad

Published 13 August 2018

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

by Joseph Conrad

Published 31 August 2017