The life and work of joseph conrad

February 19, George C.

After his arrival, Conrad made three voyages to the West Indies between and ; During this time, he smuggled guns for the Carlists, who were trying to put Carlos de Bourbon on the throne of Spain.

InConrad suffered from depression, caused in part by gambling debts and his being forbidden to work on any French ships due to his lying about having the proper permits.

He made an unsuccessful attempt at suicide, shooting himself through the shoulder and missing his vital organs. Biographers differ in their interpretations of this attempt: Some contend that Conrad was depressed about his squandering all his money, while others report that the attempt was a ruse designed to put Conrad out of work and thus escape the grasp of creditors.

Later that year, Conrad boarded an English ship that took him to the eastern port-town of Lowestoft; there, he joined the crew of a ship that made six voyages between Lowestoft and Newcastle. During this time, he learned English. Although he began his career as a common sailor, by he had sailed to the Asia and was made master of his own ship.

He then became a British subject and changed his name to Joseph Conrad partly to avoid having to return to Poland and serve in the Russian military. InConrad received his first command of the Otago, a ship harboring in Bangkok whose master had died.

Surprisingly, Conrad hated the day-to-day life of a sailor and never owned a boat after becoming famous; The sea, however, offered Conrad the opportunity to make a living. Conrad was attracted to this region partly because of the adventure he thought it could offer him and perhaps more importantly because working in the Congo could earn him some much-needed money.

During this voyage, Conrad witnessed incredible barbarity, illness, and inhumanity; his recollections of this trip would eventually become the basis of his most famous work, Heart of Darkness. The success of his first novel lured him away from the sea to his new adventures as an English novelist.

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He settled in England, married Jessie George inand began the career for which the world would remember him best. The Nigger of the "Narcissus" concerns a tubercular Black sailor whose impending death affects his fellow crewmen in a number of profound ways.

All three books were highly regarded in their time and are still widely read and studied today. InNostromo was published; the complex tale of an imaginary South American republic. Although he produced a large body of work, Conrad was often a slow writer who felt the pressure of deadlines and the need to keep writing to keep his family financially solvent.

Conrad continued writing tales of travel, but also turned his attention to novels of political intrigue. The Secret Agent concerns a group of anarchists who plan to blow up the Greenwich Observatory; Under Western Eyesset in nineteenth-century Czarist Russia, follows the life of a student who betrays his friend — the assassin of a government official — to the authorities.

His story "The Secret Sharer" uses the "Doppelganger theme" where a man meets his figurative double to examine what Conrad viewed as the shifting nature of human identity and the essential isolation of all human beings. InChance was a great success both critically and financially; the novel, like Heart of Darkness, explores the ways in which an innocent person like Marlow becomes hardened by the horrors that surround her.

Conrad also turned to autobiography: All treat his seafaring days and development as an artist. Conrad died of heart failure on August 3, He was buried in Canterbury Cemetery and survived by his wife and sons Borys and John.

Still honored by millions of readers as one of the greatest modern writers, Conrad left behind a large body of work whose nature he defined in his Preface to The Nigger of the "Narcissus" as "a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every aspect.Joseph Conrad (), Polish-born English author and master mariner wrote Heart of Darkness (); No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence—that which makes its truth, its meaning—its subtle and penetrating essence.

Homosexuality in the life and work of Joseph Conrad: love between the lines. Responsibility "Homoeroticism and Homosexuality in the Life and Fiction of Joseph Conrad" examines the representations of homosexuality and homoeroticism in Conrad's fiction.

Drawing on the work of Geoffrey Galt Harpham, Robert Hodges, Wayne Koestenbaum.

Joseph Conrad and the violence of civilization.

“Enlightening, compassionate, superb” —John Le Carré A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of One of the New York Times Notable Books of A visionary exploration of the life and times of Joseph Conrad, his turbulent age of globalization and our own, from one of the most exciting young historians writing today.

Conrad, desperate for command, takes a mate's position on a river steamer for the Societe Anonyme pour le Commerce du Haut-Congo, the experience so vividly reflected in Conrad's Congo Journal and eventually in Heart of Darkness. + free ebooks online. Did you know that you can help us produce ebooks by proof-reading just one page a day?

Go to: Distributed Proofreaders. Józef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski (Joseph Conrad) was born to Joseph Theodore Appollonius Korzeniowski and Evelina Korzeniowski on December 3, , in Berdyczew, Poland.

His father was a writer and a translator of the works of William Shakespeare (–). He was also a member of a.