The Children of the Sea - Softcover

Conrad, Joseph

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1500780324 ISBN 13: 9781500780326

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

Synopsis

"The unfortunately titled The Nigger of the "Narcissus" (titled The Children of the Sea in the first American edition) is an exciting sea adventure novel and Joseph Conrad's best work of his early period. In fact, were it not for the book's title, it undoubtedly would be read more often than it is currently. At one time, it was one of Conrad's most frequently read books. In part because of its brevity, in part because of its adventure qualities, and in part because of its literary qualities, the novel used to attract a good deal of attention. The work, written in 1896 and partly based on Conrad's experiences of a voyage from Bombay to London, began as a short story but developed into a novella of some 53,000 words. As it grew, Conrad began to think of its being serialized. After Smith Elder had rejected it for the Cornhill Magazine, William Ernest Henley accepted it for the New Review, and Conrad wrote to his agent, Garnett, "Now I have conquered Henley, I ain't 'fraid o' the divvle himself!" Some years later, in 1904, Conrad described this acceptance as "the first event in my writing life which really counted". In the United States, the novel was first published under the title The Children of the Sea: A Tale of the Forecastle, at the insistence by the publisher, Dodd, Mead and Company, that no one would buy or read a book with the word "nigger" in its title,[4] not because the word was deemed offensive, but because a book about a black man would not sell. In 2009, WordBridge Publishing published a new edition titled The N-Word of the Narcissus, which completely excised the word "nigger" from the text. According to the publishers, the offensive word may have led readers to avoid the book, and thus by getting rid of it the work was made more accessible. Although praised by some, others denounced the change as censorship. The title character, James Wait, is a dying West Indian black sailor on board the merchant ship Narcissus sailing from Bombay to London. Wait, suffering from tuberculosis, becomes seriously ill during the voyage, and his plight arouses the humanitarian sympathies of many of the crew. However, the ship's master Captain Alistoun and an old sailor named Singleton remain concerned primarily with their duties and appear indifferent to Wait's condition. Off the Cape of Good Hope the ship capsizes onto her beam-ends with half her hull submerged, and the crew clings onto the deck for an entire night and day, waiting in silence for the ship to turn over the rest of the way and sink. Alistoun refuses to allow the masts to be severed, which might allow the hull to right itself. Five of the men, realizing that Wait is unaccounted for, climb down to his cabin and rescue him at their own peril.

About this title

About the Author:

Polish author Joseph Conrad is considered to be one of the greatest English-language novelists, a remarkable achievement considering English was not his first language. Conrad s literary works often featured a nautical setting, reflecting the influences of his early career in the Merchant Navy, and his depictions of the struggles of the human spirit in a cold, indifferent world are best exemplified in such seminal works as Heart of Darkness, Lord JimM, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, and Typhoon. Regarded as a forerunner of modernist literature, Conrad s writing style and characters have influenced such distinguished writers as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William S. Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, and George Orwell, among many others. Many of Conrad s novels have been adapted for film, most notably Heart of Darkness, which served as the inspiration and foundation for Francis Ford Coppola s 1979 film Apocalypse Now.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1500780324
• ISBN 13: 9781500780326
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 132