Joseph Conrad Books

An excellent collection of short fiction. Each tale is as compelling, as it is entertaining. Conrad is one of the best short story writers ever he is like a darker Stevenson who delves into the human psyche.

I read this book for a graduate Humanities course. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, written in 1899 is a seminal work about the ills of colonialism, as well as a postmodern look at the subject of mankind. Conrad's book had a crucial influence on five important works of the twentieth century: J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius, was based on Conrad's book. Another interesting fact is that this work was read by Orson Welle's Mercury Theater Players on the radio and was to be his first movie. After doing some work on it he abandoned the project to do Citizen Kane! I would have loved to of seen what Welles could have done with this story. Conrad's story is so riveting in part, because he himself served as a riverboat captain. High school teachers and college professors who have discussed this book in thousands of classrooms over the years tend to do so in terms of Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche; of classical myth, Victorian innocence, and original sin; of postmodernism, postcolonialism, and poststructuralism.

Just a taste of the plot reels you in! Marlow, the narrator of Heart of Darkness and Conrad's alter ego, is hired by an ivory-trading company to sail a steamboat up an unnamed river whose shape on the map resembles "an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land" (8). His destination is a post where the company's brilliant, ambitious star agent, Mr. Kurtz, is stationed. Kurtz has collected legendary quantities of ivory, but, Marlow learns along the way, is also rumored to have sunk into unspecified savagery. Marlow's steamer survives an attack by blacks and picks up a load of ivory and the ill Kurtz; Kurtz, talking of his grandiose plans, dies on board as they travel, downstream.

Sketched with only a few bold strokes, Kurtz's image has nonetheless remained in the memories of millions of readers: the lone white agent far up the great river, with his dreams of grandeur,his great store of precious ivory, and his fiefdom carved out of the African jungle. Perhaps more than anything, we remember Marlow, on the steamboat, looking through binoculars at what he thinks are ornamental knobs atop the fence posts in front of Kurtz's house and then finding that each is "black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids-a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth" (57).

I especially became interested in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land is one of three books on the nightstand. The other two are Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, and J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla are trying to tell their audience need to read these three books as well as Conrad's Heart of Darkness!

As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.

I read this book for a graduate Humanities course. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, written in 1899 is a seminal work about the ills of colonialism, as well as a postmodern look at the subject of mankind. Conrad's book had a crucial influence on five important works of the twentieth century: J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius, was based on Conrad's book. Another interesting fact is that this work was read by Orson Welle's Mercury Theater Players on the radio and was to be his first movie. After doing some work on it he abandoned the project to do Citizen Kane! I would have loved to of seen what Welles could have done with this story. Conrad's story is so riveting in part, because he himself served as a riverboat captain. High school teachers and college professors who have discussed this book in thousands of classrooms over the years tend to do so in terms of Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche; of classical myth, Victorian innocence, and original sin; of postmodernism, postcolonialism, and poststructuralism.

Just a taste of the plot reels you in! Marlow, the narrator of Heart of Darkness and Conrad's alter ego, is hired by an ivory-trading company to sail a steamboat up an unnamed river whose shape on the map resembles "an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land" (8). His destination is a post where the company's brilliant, ambitious star agent, Mr. Kurtz, is stationed. Kurtz has collected legendary quantities of ivory, but, Marlow learns along the way, is also rumored to have sunk into unspecified savagery. Marlow's steamer survives an attack by blacks and picks up a load of ivory and the ill Kurtz; Kurtz, talking of his grandiose plans, dies on board as they travel, downstream.

Sketched with only a few bold strokes, Kurtz's image has nonetheless remained in the memories of millions of readers: the lone white agent far up the great river, with his dreams of grandeur,his great store of precious ivory, and his fiefdom carved out of the African jungle. Perhaps more than anything, we remember Marlow, on the steamboat, looking through binoculars at what he thinks are ornamental knobs atop the fence posts in front of Kurtz's house and then finding that each is "black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids-a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth" (57).

I especially became interested in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land is one of three books on the nightstand. The other two are Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, and J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla are trying to tell their audience need to read these three books as well as Conrad's Heart of Darkness!

As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a classic of British literature. Although Conrad was born in Russia-controlled Poland and did not become fluent in English until he was 21 years old, he demonstrates a tremendous mastery of the English language. Like many of his stories, Heart of Darkness is based on one of Conrad's own adventures (when he captained a steamboat down the Congo River).

Heart of Darkness chronicles the adventures of Charlie Marlow, a sailor and wanderer whose adventures lead him into the Congo Free State (under the control of Belgium) during the height of African Imperialism. As Marlow progressed further and further into the Congo, he confronts the growing darkness of mankind. The novel is often mistakenly taught in schools as a great anti-Imperialism novel, but this is not quite accurate. Almost every aspect of Heart of Darkness is ambiguous. Although Conrad clearly criticizes the false claims of humanitarian motives in imperialism, he does not condemn the act of imperialism. It is not even clear whether Conrad considers the Africans to be human.

Despite all its ambiguities, the Heart of Darkness is an important novel. At the very least, it paints a stunning and painful portrait of the cruelty and inhumanity of imperialist activities. If Conrad is not condemning imperialism, which is likely the case, then the novel ably portrays the underlying racism (and sexism, incidentally) in European thought during the time period.

The Secret Sharer is a short-story included with some copies of Heart of Darkness. The story follows a ship captain who rescues someone from the waters and allows him to stay on his ship, hidden from the ships' crew. The man turns out to have been a sailor on another ship who killed a crew-member during a storm. The captain protects the killer and eventually allows him to escape. Like the Heart of Darkness, the Secret Sharer is an ambiguous tale open to myriad interpretations.

Conrad's writing style is, admittedly, difficult at times. Although both stories are short, it takes a considerable amount of time to finish each one. The Heart of Darkness is told almost entirely through narrative which, at times, can become confusing and force the reader to go back and re-read some of the previous passages. Some readers are turned off by Conrad's writing style, while others find it very appealing. Whether you find it challenging or not, however, it is important to read the Heart of Darkness. It is difficult to find a better portrait of the horrors of imperialism.

This book combines the full text of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" with critical notes. There's no need to work with a separate study guide, which makes this read a seamless study of this classic work of literature. Highly recommended.

I read this book for a graduate Humanities course. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, written in 1899 is a seminal work about the ills of colonialism, as well as a postmodern look at the subject of mankind. Conrad's book had a crucial influence on five important works of the twentieth century: J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius, was based on Conrad's book. Another interesting fact is that this work was read by Orson Welle's Mercury Theater Players on the radio and was to be his first movie. After doing some work on it he abandoned the project to do Citizen Kane! I would have loved to of seen what Welles could have done with this story. Conrad's story is so riveting in part, because he himself served as a riverboat captain. High school teachers and college professors who have discussed this book in thousands of classrooms over the years tend to do so in terms of Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche; of classical myth, Victorian innocence, and original sin; of postmodernism, postcolonialism, and poststructuralism.

Just a taste of the plot reels you in! Marlow, the narrator of Heart of Darkness and Conrad's alter ego, is hired by an ivory-trading company to sail a steamboat up an unnamed river whose shape on the map resembles "an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land" (8). His destination is a post where the company's brilliant, ambitious star agent, Mr. Kurtz, is stationed. Kurtz has collected legendary quantities of ivory, but, Marlow learns along the way, is also rumored to have sunk into unspecified savagery. Marlow's steamer survives an attack by blacks and picks up a load of ivory and the ill Kurtz; Kurtz, talking of his grandiose plans, dies on board as they travel, downstream.

Sketched with only a few bold strokes, Kurtz's image has nonetheless remained in the memories of millions of readers: the lone white agent far up the great river, with his dreams of grandeur,his great store of precious ivory, and his fiefdom carved out of the African jungle. Perhaps more than anything, we remember Marlow, on the steamboat, looking through binoculars at what he thinks are ornamental knobs atop the fence posts in front of Kurtz's house and then finding that each is "black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids-a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth" (57).

I especially became interested in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land is one of three books on the nightstand. The other two are Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, and J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla are trying to tell their audience need to read these three books as well as Conrad's Heart of Darkness!

As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.

I read this book for a graduate Humanities course. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, written in 1899 is a seminal work about the ills of colonialism, as well as a postmodern look at the subject of mankind. Conrad's book had a crucial influence on five important works of the twentieth century: J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius, was based on Conrad's book. Another interesting fact is that this work was read by Orson Welle's Mercury Theater Players on the radio and was to be his first movie. After doing some work on it he abandoned the project to do Citizen Kane! I would have loved to of seen what Welles could have done with this story. Conrad's story is so riveting in part, because he himself served as a riverboat captain. High school teachers and college professors who have discussed this book in thousands of classrooms over the years tend to do so in terms of Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche; of classical myth, Victorian innocence, and original sin; of postmodernism, postcolonialism, and poststructuralism.

Just a taste of the plot reels you in! Marlow, the narrator of Heart of Darkness and Conrad's alter ego, is hired by an ivory-trading company to sail a steamboat up an unnamed river whose shape on the map resembles "an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land" (8). His destination is a post where the company's brilliant, ambitious star agent, Mr. Kurtz, is stationed. Kurtz has collected legendary quantities of ivory, but, Marlow learns along the way, is also rumored to have sunk into unspecified savagery. Marlow's steamer survives an attack by blacks and picks up a load of ivory and the ill Kurtz; Kurtz, talking of his grandiose plans, dies on board as they travel, downstream.

Sketched with only a few bold strokes, Kurtz's image has nonetheless remained in the memories of millions of readers: the lone white agent far up the great river, with his dreams of grandeur,his great store of precious ivory, and his fiefdom carved out of the African jungle. Perhaps more than anything, we remember Marlow, on the steamboat, looking through binoculars at what he thinks are ornamental knobs atop the fence posts in front of Kurtz's house and then finding that each is "black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids-a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth" (57).

I especially became interested in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land is one of three books on the nightstand. The other two are Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, and J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla are trying to tell their audience need to read these three books as well as Conrad's Heart of Darkness!

As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.

This is an excellent reading. Cosham, the reader, is a trained actor, and has a good sense of performance. My intial reaction was that Cosham's reading wasn't "salty" enough for Marlow, but as it went on I realized that a highly showy performance would have worn thin over time.

Moreover, hearing this work in audio brings out qualities of some of the denser passages that are hard to digest with a silent reading. To me, it's much like the way that seeing a Shakespeare performance can really bring alive words that seem too dense and knotted on the page.

If you like Conrad, and you like audio books, this is a can't-miss performance.

An important scholarly contribution to the literature on exile. As a political writer in exile from her native land, I can attest to acuity of Israel's observations.

Of course Outlandish is rigorous and meticulously researched. But it's much more than that. Israel brings energy and even passion - "even" passion? I mean *especially* passion - to his scholarly subject, and the result is an academic page-turner that must now be considered the definitive treatment of the literature of exile. Invest in this book as you would invest in a suitcase out of which you might one day have to live.

CONRAD

Joseph Conrad (born Konrad Korzienowski) spoke no language but his native Polish until his early twenties, when he embarked on mercantile ships to find himself.

In short order, he acquired not only a facility with English, but a genius for distilling the human experience into a few short paragraphs. In "The Nigger of the Narcissus," he examines both the alientation of a minority member , and the insularity of shipboard life in the 19th Century.

It is impossible to read a page of Conrad without being absorbed into the Scenario.
For instance:

"Men stood around very still and with exasperated eyes. It was just what they had expected, and hated to hear, that idea of a stalking death, thrust at them many times a day like a boast and like a menace by this obnoxious nigger. He said to take a pride in that death, which so far, had attended only upon the ease of his life. ....Was he a reality - or was he a sham... this ever-expected visitor...?

The short novel is a demanding genre, of which Conrad is a master. "Typhoon," "Benito Cereno" , "Heart of Darkness" and "The Secret Sharer" are other classics .

Very complete, well-written, interesting to read, this introduction to Modernism is just what you're looking for, if you're interested in Modernism. It covers a lot of ground, and gives enough context, historical and otherwise, so that Modernism can be seen in perspective. Highly recommended.

I read this book for a graduate Humanities course. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, written in 1899 is a seminal work about the ills of colonialism, as well as a postmodern look at the subject of mankind. Conrad's book had a crucial influence on five important works of the twentieth century: J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius, was based on Conrad's book. Another interesting fact is that this work was read by Orson Welle's Mercury Theater Players on the radio and was to be his first movie. After doing some work on it he abandoned the project to do Citizen Kane! I would have loved to of seen what Welles could have done with this story. Conrad's story is so riveting in part, because he himself served as a riverboat captain. High school teachers and college professors who have discussed this book in thousands of classrooms over the years tend to do so in terms of Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche; of classical myth, Victorian innocence, and original sin; of postmodernism, postcolonialism, and poststructuralism.

Just a taste of the plot reels you in! Marlow, the narrator of Heart of Darkness and Conrad's alter ego, is hired by an ivory-trading company to sail a steamboat up an unnamed river whose shape on the map resembles "an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land" (8). His destination is a post where the company's brilliant, ambitious star agent, Mr. Kurtz, is stationed. Kurtz has collected legendary quantities of ivory, but, Marlow learns along the way, is also rumored to have sunk into unspecified savagery. Marlow's steamer survives an attack by blacks and picks up a load of ivory and the ill Kurtz; Kurtz, talking of his grandiose plans, dies on board as they travel, downstream.

Sketched with only a few bold strokes, Kurtz's image has nonetheless remained in the memories of millions of readers: the lone white agent far up the great river, with his dreams of grandeur,his great store of precious ivory, and his fiefdom carved out of the African jungle. Perhaps more than anything, we remember Marlow, on the steamboat, looking through binoculars at what he thinks are ornamental knobs atop the fence posts in front of Kurtz's house and then finding that each is "black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids-a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth" (57).

I especially became interested in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land is one of three books on the nightstand. The other two are Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, and J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla are trying to tell their audience need to read these three books as well as Conrad's Heart of Darkness!

As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.

I highly recommend this Book to both readers and reseachers interested in Joseph Conrad's Early Works. After a brief Biographical introduction, Watt disccuses the following four works only: "Almayer's Folly", "The Nigger of the Narcissus", "Heart of Darkness" and "Lord Jim". The Novel "An Outcast of the Islands" (1896), as well as the five (three of them important) Stories of the Collection "Tales of Unrest" (1898) are not discussed. This matters little to the purpose of the book, but I did want to point it out, because the Title of the Book is a little misleading.

Each of the four Chapters is an Analysis of its own, and can be read as a seperate Essay. Together they show Conrad's development as a writer which is the Thesis of the Book. For "Almayer's Folly", the emphasis is on Conrad's experiences in the Dutch East Indies. In the "Nigger of the Narcissus", Watt shows how Conrad through his own writing and reading was able to begin to develop his own Style. "Heart of Darkness", shows the beginnings of Conrad's use of literary devices, such as Symbolism and Impressionism. "Lord Jim" is the culmination of Conrad as a writer in the 19th Century, and shows such developments as Delayed Decoding and Symbolic Deciphering in the Narrative. Interestingly, even Watt, and Conrad's Biographers can only guess how Conrad developed some of these narrative devices, or whether he did do so himself, or through outside reading.

Several factors make this book work very well: Watt's impeccable research and knowledge of not only Conrad, but of Literature and its narrative devices, the careful organization and plan of the book, and his excellent writing which makes this book flow extremely well. My only criticism is that the book lacks a Bibliography. However, Watt's sources can be gleaned through the excellent footnotes.

If I were to teach a course on Conrad. I would use this book as a Text. Unfortunately, a second projected Volume, presumably a Study of Conrad's work in the 20th Century, was never published.

I read this book for a graduate Humanities course. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, written in 1899 is a seminal work about the ills of colonialism, as well as a postmodern look at the subject of mankind. Conrad's book had a crucial influence on five important works of the twentieth century: J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius, was based on Conrad's book. Another interesting fact is that this work was read by Orson Welle's Mercury Theater Players on the radio and was to be his first movie. After doing some work on it he abandoned the project to do Citizen Kane! I would have loved to of seen what Welles could have done with this story. Conrad's story is so riveting in part, because he himself served as a riverboat captain. High school teachers and college professors who have discussed this book in thousands of classrooms over the years tend to do so in terms of Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche; of classical myth, Victorian innocence, and original sin; of postmodernism, postcolonialism, and poststructuralism.

Just a taste of the plot reels you in! Marlow, the narrator of Heart of Darkness and Conrad's alter ego, is hired by an ivory-trading company to sail a steamboat up an unnamed river whose shape on the map resembles "an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land" (8). His destination is a post where the company's brilliant, ambitious star agent, Mr. Kurtz, is stationed. Kurtz has collected legendary quantities of ivory, but, Marlow learns along the way, is also rumored to have sunk into unspecified savagery. Marlow's steamer survives an attack by blacks and picks up a load of ivory and the ill Kurtz; Kurtz, talking of his grandiose plans, dies on board as they travel, downstream.

Sketched with only a few bold strokes, Kurtz's image has nonetheless remained in the memories of millions of readers: the lone white agent far up the great river, with his dreams of grandeur,his great store of precious ivory, and his fiefdom carved out of the African jungle. Perhaps more than anything, we remember Marlow, on the steamboat, looking through binoculars at what he thinks are ornamental knobs atop the fence posts in front of Kurtz's house and then finding that each is "black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids-a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth" (57).

I especially became interested in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land is one of three books on the nightstand. The other two are Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, and J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla are trying to tell their audience need to read these three books as well as Conrad's Heart of Darkness!

As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.