Joseph Conrad

Razumov is a young Russian student of philosophy who is uninvolved in politics or protest. Against his will he finds himself caught up in the aftermath of a terrorist bombing directed against the Tsarist authorities. He is pulled in different directions - by his conscience and his ambitions, by powerful opposed political forces, but most of all by personal emotions he is unable to suppress.

Peter Willems is down on his luck. The Dutch clerk has been fired for embezzlement from his job in the Indonesian port city of Makassar, and his scornful wife has abandoned him. Willems' despair lifts after an encounter with Tom Lingard, a sea captain who operates a remote trading post. Lingard hires the drifter to act as his agent, entrusting Willems with knowledge of the secret route across dangerous waters to the post. Once installed in his new...

This masterly character study of human transformation, written by Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) during the First World War, chronicles a youth's passage into manhood upon becoming the commander of his first ship. In this poignant tale of maturation, Conrad explores the initiation of this transitional occurrence and delivers a portrait of physical and psychic exile; sensory disorientation; and the final crossover toward a new identity. With realism born...

The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad First published in 1906, The Mirror of the Sea was the first of Joseph Conrad's two autobiographical memoirs. Discussing it, he called the book "a very intimate revelation. . . . I have attempted here to lay bare with the unreserve of a last hour's confession the terms of my relation with the sea, which beginning mysteriously, like any great passion the inscrutable Gods send to mortals, went on unreasoning and...

"A drifter in the islands of the Malay Archipelago rescues a young Englishwoman from her predatory boss, and the vengeful employer sets a trio of miscreants on their trail. Joseph Conrad's first popular success abounds in the elements characteristic of his later work: an exotic setting, richly and powerfully evoked; muscular prose; complex characterization; and a compelling examination of the human capacity for good and evil"--

Chance (1914) was the first of Conrad's novels to bring him popular success and it holds a unique place among his works. It tells the story of Flora de Barral, a vulnerable and abandoned young girl who is "like a beggar, without a right to anything but compassion." After her bankrupt father is imprisoned, she learns the harsh fact that a woman in her position "has no resources but in herself." Her only means of action is to be what she is. Flora's...

Regarded by critics and fans alike as one of the masters of English fiction, Joseph Conrad is known for novels and works of fiction such as The Heart of Darkness, Victory, and Lord Jim. The collection A Set of Six brings together a number of Conrad's shorter pieces, featuring a swashbuckling cast of characters that will appeal to fans of the action-adventure genre. As part of our mission to publish great works of literary fiction and nonfiction, Sheba...

The first novel of Conrad's impressive list of works, "Almayer's Folly" revolves around the Dutch trader Kaspar Almayer and his life in the Borneo jungles in the late 19th century. Spurred by his desire for riches, he marries the adopted Malayan daughter of Captain Lingard, an affluent man who then requires Almayer to run his trading post in Sambir, in the Borneo jungles. While his chances of inheriting Lingard's wealth have increased, Almayer is...

Written at various times, under various influences, the four stories contained in Within the Tides are linked by Conrad's treatment of loyalty and betrayal. They range in setting from the Far East via eighteenth-century Spain to England. The tone shifts from the tragic inevitability of The Planter of Malata and the pathos of Because of the Dollars to the gothic The Inn of the Two Witches and the grim humour of The Partner. The form of the stories...

Reflecting Conrad's genius for narrative that focuses on the quest for inner truths, The Arrow of Gold is an exploration of the dangerous appetites of men and of human vulnerability, as well as a profound meditation on the emotional boundary between people. During the Carlist war of the early 1870s, a young sailor, the unnamed protagonist, joins the champions of Don Carlos de Bourbon, pretender to the throne of Spain. The Carlists use the eager youth's...