Richard Ruppel is a professor of English at Chapman University.

In A Political Genealogy of Joseph Conrad, Ruppel proposes a much-needed critical intervention into Conrad’s complicated and ambivalent engagement with political discourse and ideology, particularly in the major novels. Surveying the criticism surrounding Conradian politics, Ruppel finds that previous critics unjustly pigeonholed Conrad as a profoundly conservative, even reactionary, writer. Arguing vigorously against this time-honored truism, Ruppel contends that the émigré polyglot’s political ideas and leanings were 'radically contingent,' particularly in relation to the audience he envisioned for himself. In tightly structured arguments in successive chapters on the major works, Ruppel reveals Conrad as politically protean rather than staunchly conservative. Far from a hindrance or an impediment to his aesthetic designs, his political mutability allowed him to throw into question grand narratives that underlie and structure political relations. This necessary, useful volume offers a fresh and engaging approach to the writer’s complex novelistic expressions of the political. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Conrad’s Radically Contingent PoliticsChapter 1: The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’(1897), Almayer’s Folly (1895), & An Outcast of the Islands (1896)Chapter 2: Lord Jim (1900)Chapter 3: Heart of Darkness (1899-1900)Chapter 4: Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard (1904)Chapter 5:“An Anarchist” (1906), “The Informer” (1906), & The Secret Agent (1907)Chapter 6: A Personal Record (1912) & Under Western Eyes (1911)Chapter 7: Chance (1912)BibliographyAbout the Author

Richard Ruppel is a professor of English at Chapman University.

In A Political Genealogy of Joseph Conrad, Ruppel proposes a much-needed critical intervention into Conrad’s complicated and ambivalent engagement with political discourse and ideology, particularly in the major novels. Surveying the criticism surrounding Conradian politics, Ruppel finds that previous critics unjustly pigeonholed Conrad as a profoundly conservative, even reactionary, writer. Arguing vigorously against this time-honored truism, Ruppel contends that the émigré polyglot’s political ideas and leanings were 'radically contingent,' particularly in relation to the audience he envisioned for himself. In tightly structured arguments in successive chapters on the major works, Ruppel reveals Conrad as politically protean rather than staunchly conservative. Far from a hindrance or an impediment to his aesthetic designs, his political mutability allowed him to throw into question grand narratives that underlie and structure political relations. This necessary, useful volume offers a fresh and engaging approach to the writer’s complex novelistic expressions of the political. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Conrad’s Radically Contingent PoliticsChapter 1: The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’(1897), Almayer’s Folly (1895), & An Outcast of the Islands (1896)Chapter 2: Lord Jim (1900)Chapter 3: Heart of Darkness (1899-1900)Chapter 4: Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard (1904)Chapter 5:“An Anarchist” (1906), “The Informer” (1906), & The Secret Agent (1907)Chapter 6: A Personal Record (1912) & Under Western Eyes (1911)Chapter 7: Chance (1912)BibliographyAbout the Author