Conrad

by Norman Sherry

A biography of the Polish-born author who wrote in English and gained fame for his novels and short stories about the sea.

Genres: Biography, English Literature

128 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1988

About the author

Norman Sherry was an English novelist, biographer, and educator who was best known for his three-volume biography of the British novelist Graham Greene. He was Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University.
Sherry was born in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, the younger twin (by eleven minutes) of Alan. Sherry studied at King's College, Newcastle, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1955.
He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He also wrote on Joseph Conrad, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, and Jane Austen. His Life of Graham Greene was praised by David Lodge for being "a remarkable and heroic achievement" that he predicted would prove "the definitive biography of record" of Greene.
From 1983, Sherry held the post of Mitchell Distinguished Professor of Literature at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.
He was married three times: first to the children's novelist Sylvia Sherry, then to Carmen Flores (with whom he had a son and a daughter), and finally to Pat Villalon.

Reviews

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was like "Conrad for DUMMIES," but in a good way. A slim volume (128 pages) about half of which is photos, it really gave me all I needed to know about the almost Lincolnesque life of Joseph Conrad - early failures, tumultuous family life, health problems, bouts of depression, lifelong financial problems (don't think Lincoln had those), etc. Makes you never want to be famous, if that's the cost.

The book is really one long essay - no chapters, breaks or introduction, just straight chronological story from birth to death. But that's what I was looking for. This is part of a short series of similar titles published as "Thames and Hudson Literary Lives" in the 70's and 80's, and included an equally good Rudyard Kipling bio by Kingsley Amis which I also read. Interesting to learn that, like Kipling, all of the travel that infused Conrad's Asian writings was completed before he was 30, and only recalled years later for his stories. I also hadn't realized he was contemporaries and friends with H.G. Wells, Stephen Crane, Thomas Hardy, G.B. Shaw and yes, Kipling too - what parties thoses must have been!

Sherry (who I had never heard of) is a novelist and biographer most famous for a 3-volume biography of Graham Greene and several longer profiles of Conrad, (none of which I'll ever read - much prefer these shorter snapshots).

[Natalya · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read that gives a engaging summation on Joseph Conrad’s life. Sherry’s writing is straightforward but thankfully not dry. I was easily able to follow the timeline and found plenty of interesting facts along the way. I particularly loved anything with Conrad’s uncle Thaddeus Bobrowski who comes across as loving, but exasperated by, his nephew.
Thank you to Mr. Lawlor for recommending this book to me. I enjoyed it very much.

[TrumanCoyote · Rating 4 out of 5]

"One evening, suspecting there was an intruder in the garden, he dashed outside with his rifle, and having as he thought run the intruder to earth in the outside lavatory, burst into the building, shouting, 'Come out you--damn you!' It was his mother-in-law, who never again visited them."