Work, Inheritance, and Deserts in Joseph Conrad’s Fiction

Evelyn Tsz Yan Chan is Associate Professor in English at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her publications include Virginia Woolf and the Professions (2014), The Humanities in Contemporary Chinese Contexts (2016, Springer; as a contributor and co-editor), and The Value of the Humanities in Higher Education: Perspectives from Hong Kong (2020, Springer; as primary author). She has also published numerous articles on Joseph Conrad. Her primary research and teaching interests are in literary representations of work and education, and in philosophical issues arising from such representations.

• Introduction.- “[T]he rightful due of a successful man”: Claiming Desert in Almayer’s Folly and An Outcast of the Islands.- “A Manifestation of a Deep, Inborn Inherited Instinct”: Instabilities of Self-Making in Lord Jim.- Nostromo’s Great Expectations.- “[E]ntitled to Undisputed Success”: Professional Being vs. Doing in The Secret Agent.- The Moral Work of Affirming Inheritances in Under Western Eyes and Victory.