Collected Stories of Joseph Conrad. This item is unavailable.Collected Stories of Joseph Conrad

Word-of-mouth chronicles of ship captains, anarchists, aristocrats, merchants, and explorers, and his own experiences at sea provided Joseph Conrad with the raw materials from which he crafted his richly evocative short stories. Above and beyond their powerful narratives and compelling adventures, these stories vividly dramatize the political, spiritual, and moral conflicts of early twentieth century culture -- man in conflict against nature, against repressive institutions and governments, and against his own expectations. With their themes of restlessness, exile, and loss, their wide-ranging exotic settings, and their international cast of characters, Conrad's short stories transcend the mere adventurousness of sea yarns to address the complicated issues of individual freedom and duty, making him one of our essential writers. Edited and with an introduction by Samuel Hynes, and featuring a chronology of Conrad's life, as well as the author's own notes on the text, this is the only collection that brings together all twenty-two of Joseph Conrad's stories.

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.