The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Joseph Conrad
18 total works
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.
While these share some of the thematic preoccupations and settings of his famous later novels, the stories already demonstrate Conrad's innovative and dramatic power. Exploring themes of betrayal, fear, hope and return, this anthology brings together KARAIN: A MEMORY; THE IDIOTS; AN OUTPOST OF PROGRESS; THE RETURN and THE LAGOON. Following their magazine serialisation these made up Conrad's first collection of short stories in 1898, only three years after he abandoned the sea to write professionally.
In Victory (1915) Conrad returns to the Malay Archipelago, to the setting of his first mature novel, Lord Jim, and in Axel Heyst he creates a hero who is in many ways similar to Jim, a noble altruist destroyed by his ideals. Heyst is emotionally crippled by the influence of his dead father, a sceptical philosopher who has bequeathed to Heyst an attitude to life summed up in the father's dying words: 'Look on - make no sound.' Despite this injunction Heyst allows himself to become inextricably involved with an English Cockney girl whom he rescues from Giancomo's Travelling Ladies' Orchestra and carries off to his isolated retreat on the island of Samburan. His action incurs the fatal wrath of Schomberg, the island's innkeeper, who sends in pursuit of Heyst three demonic strangers whose invasion of his island paradise leads rapidly to the novel's violent and tragic close. Victory was the first of Conrad's novels to be completed after the commercial success of Chance (1914) had transformed Conrad's fortunes and made him internationally famous. It is a more complex example of the literary form which Conrad evolved for Lord Jim: a story of action and high adventure coexisting with an exhaustive study of the psychology of the central character.
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
"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
Set in a jungle village in eastern Borneo during the 1880s, Almayer's Folly recreates the many conflicts - economic, religious, racial, cultural, sexual - of imperial Europe with the colonized East Indies through Joseph Conrad's story of Kaspar Almayer's personal tragedy: his loss of both his daughter of mixed race to her native lover and his dream of finding enough gold to return to Amsterdam in triumph. The introduction gives the history of the composition of Conrad's first book, which was started in London in the autumn of 1889 and completed four and a half years later; the manuscript went with him to the Congo, Australia, the Ukraine, Belgium, Switzerland and France on his travels as a seaman and on holiday. During this long gestation, some of the chapters were typed twice, and later Conrad's slightly foreign English was tidied several times by publishers. The novel has suffered seven layers of unauthorized intervention, as set out in the essay on the text and the apparatus. The notes explain Malay terms and historical references, and there are two regional maps. This is the text of Almayer's Folly, established through modern textual scholarship, as Conrad would have liked it to have appeared in 1895.
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."
This is the only novel that Conrad set in London, and it communicates a profoundly ironic view of human affairs. The story is woven around an attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894. Verlac, (a Russian spy who is also working for the police) is ostensibly a member of an anarchist group in Soho. His masters instruct him to discredit the anarchists in some spectacular way. The upshot of the affair is that his evil plan goes horribly wrong and the repercussions are dramatically different from those that Verloc intended.
Published posthumously in 1925, Suspense is set in Genoa in early 1815. This edition of Conrad's last novel, established through modern textual scholarship, presents the text in a form more authoritative than any so far printed. The introduction situates the novel in Conrad's career and traces its sources and contemporary reception. The explanatory notes explain literary and historical references, identify real-life places and indicate Conrad's main research materials. A glossary of foreign words and phrases enriches the explanatory matter, as do four illustrations and a map. A notebook of Conrad's research for the novel and deleted drafts are published here for the first time. The essay on the text and apparatus lay out the history of the work's composition and publication and detail interventions in the text by Richard Curle, who, as Conrad's de facto literary executor, saw the novel into print, along with typists, compositors and editors.
The Shadow-Line, the story of the trials of a young Captain on a shop, is the masterpiece of Conrad's final creative period.
Joseph Conrad is a largely enigmatic presence in his novels, but in A Personal Record he decided to introduce his readers to "the figure behind the veil". Almost equally revealing is The Mirror of the Sea, written in "tribute to the sea, its ships, and its men, to whom I remain indebted for so much which has gone to make me what I am". Both are full of Conrad's anecdotes and adventures about smuggling arms to Don Carlos, a claimant to the Spanish throne, and characters like the great-uncle who once had to eat a Lithuanian dog during Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. They also let us see inside the young man who broke with his Polish background and was deeply inspired by the resilience and devotion to duty of his fellow British sailors. Every page is filled with a powerful moral intelligence and sense of history.
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.
Set in Provence in the waning years of the French Revolution, the book centres on the experiences of Peyrol, an exile who is drawn into the lives of the inhabitants of a remote farm, and sets out on a voyage that gives shape and coherence to his life.
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.
The twenty-six essays collected in Notes on Life and Letters (first published 1921) offer a kaleidoscopic view of Joseph Conrad's literary views and interest in the events of his day, including the Titanic disaster, First World War, and the re-emergence of his native Poland as a nation state. The introduction gives the history of the gathering of these diverse pieces into a single volume, traces the book's reception, and offers new perspectives on its relationship to Conrad's other writings. His essays underwent multiple layers of unauthorized intervention by typists, compositors and editors: this history is set out in the essay on the text and in the apparatus. The notes explain literary and historical references, identify places mentioned, and gloss foreign terms. Two maps supplement the explanatory material. This edition, first published in 2004 and established through modern textual scholarship, presents Conrad's essays and reviews in an authoritative form.
In this collection of stories, Conrad appears at the peak of his artistic creativity. The dimensions which are touched by his deeply sensitive mind and the broad canvases that he presents and portrays through his work are truly gripping. The multifarious issues of life are dwelled upon with deep alacrity. Engrossing!
'Youth', Heart of Darkness and 'The End of the Tether' make up Conrad's most celebrated collection of short narratives. Heart of Darkness forms its sombre centrepiece: set in the Congo of the 1890s, this haunting and widely influential Modernist masterpiece explores the limits of human experience as well as the nightmarish realities and consequences of imperialism. The Cambridge edition presents this trio of stories and Conrad's preface to the collection in forms more authoritative than any so far published. The introduction situates the stories in Conrad's publishing career, traces their sources and surveys contemporary reception. The edition includes detailed explanatory and contextual notes, a glossary of nautical terms, maps and illustrations. A textual essay and comprehensive apparatus reveal the history of each story's composition, revision and publication. This volume will allow scholars to see these familiar stories in a fresh light, by returning to Conrad's original texts.
Bringing together work composed from 1890 to 1924, the nineteen pieces collected in the posthumously published Last Essays (1926) serve as a primer to Conrad's wide interests and to the varieties of his style. This edition, supported by an extensive textual apparatus, brings together various prose pieces, including reminiscences, reviews, essays on the sea and politics, as well as several miscellaneous items, including his 'Congo Diary' and the other notebook he kept in Africa in 1890. The introduction situates these writings in Conrad's career, offers new perspectives on Conrad in the marketplace and as a writer of occasional prose and traces the contemporary reception of the volume. The notes explain literary and historical references, identify real-life places and indicate Conrad's main sources. Early drafts and notes for several essays are published here for the first time, making this authoritative critical edition a major contribution to Conrad studies.
This volume offers scholars the first authoritative text of two works produced collaboratively by two of the most important modern British novelists. Long hard to obtain and frequently neglected by critics, each can now be appreciated both in its own right and as part of the two authors' individual oeuvres. This scholarly edition situates both works in the context of the writers' meeting and ongoing collaboration, providing illuminating literary and historical references and detailing the works' composition history and reception in the UK and America. As well as establishing definitive texts of both works and of the authors' prefaces written for the 1924 republication of The Nature of a Crime, this edition also includes Ford's own 1924 account of his collaboration with Conrad on The Inheritors, as well as the text of Ford's 'The Old Story', a hitherto unpublished early draft of the basic plot of The Nature of a Crime.