Typhoon - Softcover

Conrad, Joseph

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1502454297 ISBN 13: 9781502454294

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

Synopsis

Typhoon, by Joseph Conrad, is a classic adventure story of sea-faring life at the turn of the century; Captain Macwhirr, estranged from his family and his crew, sails the Siamese steam Nan-Shan into the center of a typhoon. Typhoon is possibly based upon Conrad's actual experience of seaman's life, and probably on a real incident aboard of the steamer John P. Best (according to the book by Jerry Allen on the "Sea years of Joseph Conrad", first published in 1965). The author of the mentioned book - an American journalist - did not reveal in her book any further details. Joseph Conrad himself described it as a "recent and much-discussed incident" (Author's note to the novella). The "Typhoon" describes how Captain MacWhirr sails the SS Nan-Shan, a British-built steamer running under the Siamese flag, into a typhoon—a mature tropical cyclone of the northwestern part of the Pacific Ocean. Other characters include the young Jukes - most probably an alter ego of Conrad from the time he had sailed under captain John McWhirr - and Solomon Rout, the chief engineer. The novella classically evokes the seafaring life at the turn of the century. While Macwhirr, who, according to Conrad, "never walked on this Earth" - is emotionally estranged from his family and crew, and though he refuses to consider an alternative course to skirt the typhoon, his indomitable will in the face of a superior natural force elicits grudging admiration.

About this title

About the Author

Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in English. He was granted British nationality in 1886, but always considered himself a Pole. Though he did not speak English fluently until he was in his twenties (and always with a marked accent), he was a master prose stylist who brought a distinctly non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote stories and novels, many with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of an impassive, inscrutable universe. Joseph Conrad is considered an early modernist, though his works still contain elements of nineteenth-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced many authors, including T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Graham Greene, and more recently Salman Rushdie. Many films have been adapted from, or inspired by, Conrad's works. Writing in the heyday of the British Empire, Conrad drew on his native Poland's national experiences and on his personal experiences in the French and British merchant navies to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world, while profoundly exploring human psychology. Appreciated early on by literary critics, his fiction and nonfiction have since been seen as almost prophetic, in the light of subsequent national and international disasters of the 20th and 21st centuries.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1502454297
• ISBN 13: 9781502454294
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 94