Showing results by author "Joseph Conrad" in All Categories

Der Seemann Nostromo ist ein in Sulaco, einer fiktiven Republik in Südamerika, gestrandeter Italiener. Als Vorarbeiter arbeitet er für Kapitän Mitchell, der die örtliche Niederlassung einer englischen Schiffsgesellschaft, die den Hafen überwacht, betreibt.

Nostromo is the only man capable of the decisive action needed to save the silver of the San Tome mine and secure independence for Sulaco, Occidental province of the Latin American state of Costaguana. Is his integrity as unassailable as everyone believes, or will his ideals, like those which...

Its genesis a real attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894, Conrad’s novel offers an ironic meditation not only on anarchy and revolution, with all the deception and intrigue they imply, but also on loyalty – to friends and family, to country and ideals. ‘They swarmed numerous like...

In these four stories, written between 1900 and 1902, Joseph Conrad bid gradual farewell to his adventurous life at sea and began to confront the more daunting complexities of life on land in the twentieth century. In 'Typhoon' Conrad reveals, in the steadfast courage of an undemonstrative captain and the imaginative readiness of his young first mate, the differences between instinct and intelligence in a partnership vital to human survival.

Fifty of the greatest classic horror stories ever written: 1. "The Beast with Five Fingers" by W. F. Harvey 2. "The Well" by W. W. Jacobs 3. "The Nightmare Room" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 4. "The End of a Show" by Barry Pain 5. "Bagnell Terrace" by E. F. Benson 6. "Fingers of a Hand" by H. D. Everett 7. "The Interruption" by W. W. Jacobs 8. "Gavon’s Eve" by E. F. Benson 9. "The Ring of Thoth" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 10. "Moon’s Gibbet" by Egerton Castle 11. "The Mystery of Sasassa Valley" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Two colonial officers extol the benefits they are bringing to an African village in the form of "quays and warehouses, and barracks-and billiard-rooms". A French republican who has fathered three idiot sons makes his peace with the Church: only to have an idiot daughter. A woman chooses not to leave her husband...but he leaves her. Such are the ironies of Conrad's earliest short stories.

In Joseph Conrad's classic Heart of Darkness, Marlow is a steamboat captain working on the Congo River for a Belgian trading company. Marlow is asked to retrieve Kurtz, a legendary ivory trader who has lost contact with the home office and may have fallen ill. During the expedition Marlow is struck by the Company's mistreatment of the Congo natives. When Marlow arrives at Kurtz's station, he discovers that Kurtz has set himself up as a sort of god to the natives he had once wanted to civilize.

Before its 1902 publication, "Heart of Darkness" appeared as a three part series (1899) in "Blackwood's Magazine". It was classified by the Modern Library website editors as one of the "100 best novels" and part of the Western canon. The story centers on Charles Marlow, who narrates most of the book. He is an Englishman who takes a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a river boat captain in Africa.

Secret agent Mr. Adolph Verloc operates from a seedy Soho shop, where he deals in pornography and espionage. Idle, treacherous, and self-righteous, he makes the life of his wife, Winnie, one of silent misery. When Verloc is assigned to plant a bomb at Greenwich Observatory, his plans go terribly awry, and his family has to deal with the tragic repercussions of his actions. Joseph Conrad's dark satire on English society, while rooted in the Edwardian period, remains strikingly contemporary.

A rip-roaring tropical island adventure with a dash of philosophy, now a major film starring Simon Callow, Sam Neill and Rufus Sewell. ‘The girl he had come across … that human being so near and still so strange, gave him a greater sense of his own reality than he had ever known in all his...

Lord Jim may have been based in part on true events. Although Conrad never confirmed this assertion, similarities to real life events appear too strong to be dismissed as mere coincidence. The novel is in two main parts: firstly Jim's lapse aboard the Patna and his consequent fall, and secondly, an adventure story about Jim's rise and the tale's denouement amongst the people of Patusan - set in the Indonesian archipelago.

Set forth upon the dark and glittering waters of Joseph Conrad’s imagination. The Joseph Conrad Library presents his works read in full: tales of ships, rivers, exile, loyalty, fear, and the secret reckonings of the human heart. Here, in the hush between words, the listener may follow men tested by distance, silence, empire, and the shadow within.

Typhoon is a short novel by Joseph Conrad, begun in 1899 and published in Pall Mall Magazine in 1902. It is a classic sea yarn that describes how Captain Macwhirr sails the Siamese steamer Nan-Shan into a typhoon. Other characters include the young Jukes and Solomon, the head engineer. The novel classically evokes the sea-faring life at the turn of the century. While Macwhirr is emotionally estranged from his family and crew, and though he refuses to consider an alternate course to skirt the typhoon, his indomitable will in the face of a superior natural force elicits grudging admiration. (...

Exposing the tense relations between white colonists and African natives, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad explores the history of European colonialism in Africa, which has been known for many reasons as the Dark Continent. The book is framed as a story that is being recounted, focusing on a sailor named Marlow who is employed by an ivory trading company, known simply as the Company.

This classic precursor to the modern-day spy novel was recently in headlines when it was revealed that the Unabomber drew considerable inspiration from its prophetic portrait of terrorism. Written in 1907 and set in Edwardian London, The Secret Agent resonates just as strongly in today's world, where a handful of fanatics can still play mad politics and victimize the innocent.

Although Heart of Darkness was one of the first literary texts to provide a critical view of European imperial activities, it was initially read by critics as anything but controversial. While the book was generally admired, it was typically read either as a condemnation of a certain type of adventurer who could easily take advantage of imperialism’s opportunities, or else as a sentimental novel reinforcing domestic values.

In the 1870s, supporters of the pretender to the throne of Spain take advantage of a young man's attraction to the sea to persuade him to run dangerous missions on their behalf, with the financial support of a beautiful but exceedingly baffling young heiress, with whom the young man is soon giddily in love. Told largely in the first person, the novel is unusual, for Conrad, in focusing largely on the evolving psychology of a young man in the throes of a great romantic passion. (Summary by Peter Dann)

After spending some years wandering about the East and engaging in various adventures, Axel Heyst, a man of independent means who feels little sense of attachment to the world, retreats to a tropical island, where he lives in virtual isolation, accompanied only by his books. Complications arise when, on a rare trip back to civilization, Heyst encounters a young lady musician who is being pursued by the lustful hotel keeper and notorious gossip Schomberg. Before long, Axel Heyst is faced with the realization that the demands of the world on a man who would simply be left alone cannot be so ...

Today, we're likely to react to the title of this novella, on whose 'sincerity of expression' Conrad was willing to stake his artisitic reputation, with visceral disgust. There is a sad irony in this, for Conrad's title originally alluded to a rather complex set of meanings, implying that, by virtue of our human nature, we all carry within the fragile vessel that is our idealised image of ourselves a darker being we find troubling, even despicable, but with whom we must eventually come to terms. Indeed, in the couse of this tale of a traumatic sea voyage from Bombay to London, Conrad suggests ...

Hlavní hrdina, námořník Charles Marlow líčí svou cestu do Afriky ve službách jisté obchodní Společnosti. Jeho úkolem je převzít kontrolu nad zásilkou slonoviny a především vyhledat a ochránit pana Kurtze, nejschopnějšího zástupce Společnosti, kterého doslova předchází jeho pověst. Marlow slyší ze všech stran o jeho schopnostech, velkém duchu i heroických činech. Když však dorazí k cíli, nachází ho na jednom z nejtemnějších míst na zemi v krajně zbědovaném stavu, otřeseného, zděšeného a na pokraji šílenství.