Joseph Conrad

Conrad, Joseph (1857-1924), Polish-born English novelist, considered to be among the great modern English writers, whose work explores the vulnerability and moral instability at the heart of human lives.

Conrad, whose original name was Teodor Jуzef Konrad Korzeniowski, was born near Berdychev, Poland (now in Ukraine), the son of a Polish noble. From his father the boy acquired a love of literature, including romantic tales of the sea. He lost his parents at the age of 12, and when he was 16 years old he left Russian-occupied Poland and made his way to Marseille, France. For the next four years he worked on French ships, ran guns for the Carlist pretender to the Spanish throne, and became involved in a love affair that brought him to the brink of suicide. He then entered the British merchant service, becoming a master mariner and a naturalized British citizen in 1886; a few years later he changed his name to sound more English. For the next decade he traveled widely, mostly in eastern waters. Conrad's experiences, especially in the Ma`lay Archi`pelago and on the Congo River in 1890, are reflected in his writing, which was done in English, his fourth language (after Russian, Polish, and French). Conrad published his first novel and married Jessie George in 1895.

Conrad produced 13 novels, two volumes of memoirs, and 28 short stories, although writing was not easy or painless for him. Perhaps only another writer can fully appreciate his comment regarding the completion of the novel Nostromo (1904), which many critics regard as his masterpiece: "an achievement upon which my friends may congratulate me as upon recovery from a dangerous illness." In addition to the strain of writing, he endured suffering caused by gout, as well as his wife's crippling illness, and the small income he received from his work.

Conrad's life at sea and in foreign ports furnished the background for much of his writing, giving rise to the impression that he was primarily committed to foreign or alien concerns. In reality, however, his major interest was the human condition. Often his narrator is a retired master mariner, obviously Conrad's alter ego, so that some of his novels can be termed autobiographical.

One of Conrad's best-known novels is Lord Jim (1900), in which he explored the conception of personal honor through the actions and emotions of a man who spends his life trying to make for an act of cowardice he committed as a young officer during a shipwreck in the East. The story "Heart of Darkness" is one of Conrad's best-known stories and reveals the terrifying depths of human corruptibility. In most of Conrad's writings, his outlook is bleak (joyless). He writes in a rich, vivid prose style with a narrative technique that makes skillful use of breaks in linear chronology. His character development is powerful and compelling.

Conrad died at Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury, in 1924.

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