Conrad’s Popular Fictions

Andrew Glazzard is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and a visiting lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. As well as writing on Conrad, he has written on Arnold Bennett, Arthur Conan Doyle, and H.G. Wells.

“Glazzard examines themes such as espionage, diplomacy, investigation, and terrorism in Conrad’s work, tracing them back to popular contemporary texts … . A substantial work using an innovative approach, Conrad’s Popular Fictions could potentially serve as a reference point for future research on some of Conrad’s less frequently discussed writings. It is also recommended for those who are interested in turn-of-the-century English literature, culture,and the period’s sociological background.” (József Szabolcs Fagyal, Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, Vol. 24 (1), 2018)

• Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction: The All-Powerful Masses and the Limited Coterie: Conrad and Problems of Popularity 1. 'Armed with the defensive mandate of a menaced society': Detectives, Professionalism, and Liberty in The Secret Agent 2. 'An actor in desperate earnest': Informers and Secret Agency 3. 'The inciter behind': Spymasters and the Eastern Logic of Russia 4. 'The cowardly bomb-throwing brutes': The Many Types of Conrad's 'Terrorists' 5. 'The Perpetrator of the Most Heartless Frauds': Swindlers, the New Economy, and the Limits of Narrative 6. Conclusion: Cooking the Books Notes Bibliography Index