What do you think?
Rate this book
Lord Jim / The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' / Typhoon / Nostromo / The Secret Agent
Complete & Unabridged
- GenresFiction
861 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1907
2 people are currently reading
37 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Conrad
3,113 books4,864 followersJoseph Conrad was a Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language and, although he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he became a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote novels and stories, many in nautical settings, that depict crises of human individuality in the midst of what he saw as an indifferent, inscrutable, and amoral world.
Conrad is considered a literary impressionist by some and an early modernist by others, though his works also contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters, as in Lord Jim, for example, have influenced numerous authors. Many dramatic films have been adapted from and inspired by his works. Numerous writers and critics have commented that his fictional works, written largely in the first two decades of the 20th century, seem to have anticipated later world events.
Writing near the peak of the British Empire, Conrad drew on the national experiences of his native Poland—during nearly all his life, parceled out among three occupying empires—and on his own experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world—including imperialism and colonialism—and that profoundly explore the human psyche.
Conrad is considered a literary impressionist by some and an early modernist by others, though his works also contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters, as in Lord Jim, for example, have influenced numerous authors. Many dramatic films have been adapted from and inspired by his works. Numerous writers and critics have commented that his fictional works, written largely in the first two decades of the 20th century, seem to have anticipated later world events.
Writing near the peak of the British Empire, Conrad drew on the national experiences of his native Poland—during nearly all his life, parceled out among three occupying empires—and on his own experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world—including imperialism and colonialism—and that profoundly explore the human psyche.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 9, 2015
Omnibus collection, but this review is based on Nostromo, the only story I read in this collection.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, Conrad expends many thousands in his cinematic writing style of "turn on the camera and describe everything" in a seemless opening framing shot. Bogged down by too many words (for some things, the visual media like film and painting are more appropriate), the story really doesn't start cracking until the scene is set and the action starts.
Then, a classic tale emerges of a 3rd-world South American country (modeled on Paraguay, supposedly) racked by constant revolution, and peopled by native Indians, long-entrenched Spanish, and newer expatriate groups of English, Germans, and Italians. One Englishman, Charles Gould, and his beautiful and elegant wife, are drawn to the country (Charles was born there but left for school in England) by the San Tome mine concession. This concession was granted to Charles' father at a time when the technology and instrastructure would not support mining operations, but the government still extracted royalties from Gould Senior until it broke him financially and physically.
Returning to the country after his father's death with his new bride, Charles sees an opportunity to make the mine work, and does--to the detriment of his life, his wife, and his companions. The plot action revolves around a shipment of silver stored waiting for shipment, and its disposition in the face of yet another revolution sweeping into the city from the hills. By the end, the silver has destroyed a woman's soul and taken two men's lives.
Powerful insight into value and worth and the pursuit of dreams. At one point, as Dona Emilia (Mrs. Gould) feels herself losing her husband Don Carlos (Charles Gould) to the mine, she says "There is an awful sense of unreality about all this."
Thinking she is referring to the events of the day (meeting a boat by the harbor), Don Carlos responds "The glare on the water must have been simply terrible."
"One could close one's eyes to the glare," she replies, and tries to get her husband's emotional attention. His response:
"I thought you had understood me perfectly from the first. I thought we had said all there was to say a long time ago. There is nothing to say now. There were things to be done. We have done them; we have gone on doing them. There is no going back now. I don't suppose that, even from the first, there was really any possible way back. And, what's more, we can't even afford to stand still."
"Ah, if one only knew how far you mean to go", she replies.
"'Any distance, any length, of course' was the answer, in a matter-of-fact tone, which caused Mrs. Gould do make another effort to repress a shudder.
"She stood up smiling graciously, and her little figure seemd to be diminished still more by the heavy mass of her hair and the long train of her gown.
"'But always to success.', she said, persuasively.
"Charles Gould, enveloping her in the steely blue glance of his attentive eyes, answered without hesitation:
"'Oh, there is no alternative.'"
If a picture is worth a thousand words, Conrad expends many thousands in his cinematic writing style of "turn on the camera and describe everything" in a seemless opening framing shot. Bogged down by too many words (for some things, the visual media like film and painting are more appropriate), the story really doesn't start cracking until the scene is set and the action starts.
Then, a classic tale emerges of a 3rd-world South American country (modeled on Paraguay, supposedly) racked by constant revolution, and peopled by native Indians, long-entrenched Spanish, and newer expatriate groups of English, Germans, and Italians. One Englishman, Charles Gould, and his beautiful and elegant wife, are drawn to the country (Charles was born there but left for school in England) by the San Tome mine concession. This concession was granted to Charles' father at a time when the technology and instrastructure would not support mining operations, but the government still extracted royalties from Gould Senior until it broke him financially and physically.
Returning to the country after his father's death with his new bride, Charles sees an opportunity to make the mine work, and does--to the detriment of his life, his wife, and his companions. The plot action revolves around a shipment of silver stored waiting for shipment, and its disposition in the face of yet another revolution sweeping into the city from the hills. By the end, the silver has destroyed a woman's soul and taken two men's lives.
Powerful insight into value and worth and the pursuit of dreams. At one point, as Dona Emilia (Mrs. Gould) feels herself losing her husband Don Carlos (Charles Gould) to the mine, she says "There is an awful sense of unreality about all this."
Thinking she is referring to the events of the day (meeting a boat by the harbor), Don Carlos responds "The glare on the water must have been simply terrible."
"One could close one's eyes to the glare," she replies, and tries to get her husband's emotional attention. His response:
"I thought you had understood me perfectly from the first. I thought we had said all there was to say a long time ago. There is nothing to say now. There were things to be done. We have done them; we have gone on doing them. There is no going back now. I don't suppose that, even from the first, there was really any possible way back. And, what's more, we can't even afford to stand still."
"Ah, if one only knew how far you mean to go", she replies.
"'Any distance, any length, of course' was the answer, in a matter-of-fact tone, which caused Mrs. Gould do make another effort to repress a shudder.
"She stood up smiling graciously, and her little figure seemd to be diminished still more by the heavy mass of her hair and the long train of her gown.
"'But always to success.', she said, persuasively.
"Charles Gould, enveloping her in the steely blue glance of his attentive eyes, answered without hesitation:
"'Oh, there is no alternative.'"
January 24, 2017
A well produced collection (have reviewed individual stories separately) that offers some of Conrad's most important works outside Heart of Darkness. It was printed with a quality that still has the pages of my copy looking fresh about three decades after picking it up at a bargain price at an old Eaton's store.
October 14, 2008
A solid bargain-price collection of Conrad's lesser works (lesser modulo, of course, the awe-inspiring Lord Jim, which I already had in mass-market paper).
October 2, 2012
I am working on "Lord Jim", seems some thing of Dosetevsky's "Grand Inquisitor" here in Lord Jim. Lord Jim is a wonderful Full, Wonder Full story of Honor.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews