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Joseph Conrad: A Life
Up-to-date and extensive revision of Najder's much-acclaimed scholarly biography of Conrad, employing newly accessible sources.
Joseph Conrad is not only one of the world's great writers of English -- and world -- literature, but was a writer who lived a particularly full and interesting life. For the biographer this is a double-edged sword, thereare many periods for which documentation is uncommonly difficult. Zdzislaw Najder's meticulously documented biography first appeared in English in 1983, garnering high praise as the best, most complete biography of Conrad. Najder's command of English, French, Polish, and Russian allowed him access to a greater variety of sources than any other biographer, and his Polish background and his own experience as an exile have afforded him a unique affinity forConrad and his milieu. All this has come into play once again in the present, extensively revised much of its extensive new material was unearthed in newly-opened former east-bloc archives. There is new material on Conrad's father's genealogy and his role in Polish politics; Conrad's service in the French and British merchant marines; his early English reading and correspondence; his experiences in the Congo; the circumstances of writing his memoirs, and much more. In addition, several aspects of Conrad's life and works are more thoroughly his problems with the English language; his borrowings from French writers; his attitude toward socialism, his reaction to the reception of his books.
Zdzislaw Najder teaches at the European Academy, Cracow.
Joseph Conrad is not only one of the world's great writers of English -- and world -- literature, but was a writer who lived a particularly full and interesting life. For the biographer this is a double-edged sword, thereare many periods for which documentation is uncommonly difficult. Zdzislaw Najder's meticulously documented biography first appeared in English in 1983, garnering high praise as the best, most complete biography of Conrad. Najder's command of English, French, Polish, and Russian allowed him access to a greater variety of sources than any other biographer, and his Polish background and his own experience as an exile have afforded him a unique affinity forConrad and his milieu. All this has come into play once again in the present, extensively revised much of its extensive new material was unearthed in newly-opened former east-bloc archives. There is new material on Conrad's father's genealogy and his role in Polish politics; Conrad's service in the French and British merchant marines; his early English reading and correspondence; his experiences in the Congo; the circumstances of writing his memoirs, and much more. In addition, several aspects of Conrad's life and works are more thoroughly his problems with the English language; his borrowings from French writers; his attitude toward socialism, his reaction to the reception of his books.
Zdzislaw Najder teaches at the European Academy, Cracow.
802 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1983
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May 26, 2024One thing I've learned from this and also from Judith Thurmon's biography of Isak Dinesen is that it is dangerous to be a great writer. After you die people will diligently troll through all your correspondence and find all your self-dramatizing, your contradictions, your moral failures, and they will analyze them in detail. Less embarrassing to live in obscurity.
As Hilaire Belloc would have said, their sins were scarlet but their books are read.
The author is a Pole which allowed him easy access to information about the early part of Conrad's life, stuff English speaking writers could only get through translation if at all. So it fleshes out in great detail his quite interesting family of origin.
As Hilaire Belloc would have said, their sins were scarlet but their books are read.
The author is a Pole which allowed him easy access to information about the early part of Conrad's life, stuff English speaking writers could only get through translation if at all. So it fleshes out in great detail his quite interesting family of origin.
Displaying 1 of 1 review