Allan H. Simmons – författare

Joseph Conrad's Polish background, his extensive travels and his detached view of his adopted country, Britain, gave him a perspective unique among English writers of the twentieth century. Combining Continental and British influences, Victorian and Modernist styles, he was an artist acutely responsive to his age, whose works reflect and chronicle its shaping forces. This volume examines the biographical, historical, cultural and political contexts that fashioned his works. Written by a specialist, each short chapter covers a specific theme in relation to Conrad's life and work: letters, Modernism, the sea, the Polish and French languages, the First World War, and many other topics. This book will appeal to scholars as well as to those beginning their study of this extraordinary writer. It shows how this combination of different contexts allowed Conrad to become a key transitional figure in the early emergence of British literary modernism.

Joseph Conrad: Contemporary Reviews (five volumes) is an indispensable resource for Conrad specialists and students of literary Modernism generally, aiming to provide as complete a view as possible of the contemporary reception of Joseph Conrad's works in the English-speaking world. These volumes offer insights into early twentieth-century reviewing practices, the marketing of literary fiction and the wide interest in such writing, as reviews of Conrad's work regularly appeared in provincial and colonial newspapers. Contemporary Reviews Volume 5 offers previously unavailable reviews spanning Conrad's career, from Almayer's Folly (1895) to Last Essays (1926). The nearly one thousand reviews collected here chart the consolidation of Conrad's reputation as a major English author, recording his impact upon late-Victorian literature and demonstrating how he helped shape literary Modernism. Articulating areas of critical interest that continue to attract readers and commentators today, the Contemporary Reviews confirm Conrad's growing stature in the colonial literary marketplace.

The five stories brought together in Tales of Unrest (1898) mark a turning point in the writer's career. Conrad's first short story collection evidences a writer firmly in control of his new craft staking a claim to diverse cultural and fictional territories. The introduction situates the writing of these stories in Conrad's career and discusses their sources and contemporary reception. The explanatory notes identify literary and historical references and real-life places, and indicate influences. Two maps and six illustrations enrich the explanatory matter. The essay on the text lays out the history of the work's composition and publication, details interventions by Conrad's typists, compositors and editors, and explains editorial policy. This edition, established through modern textual scholarship, presents Conrad's stories and his preface to the collection in forms more authoritative than any so far printed.

Joseph Conrad's short novel The Shadow-Line: A Confession (1917) is one of the key works of early twentieth-century fiction. This edition, established through modern textual scholarship, and published as part of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Joseph Conrad, presents Conrad's only major work written during the First World War and its 1920 preface in forms more authoritative than any so far printed. Correspondence reveals that the part- and chapter-divisions present in the historical editions lack authorial sanction, and this edition of The Shadow-Line offers a continuous text for the first time, restoring to the narrative a fluency and dramatic intensity not hitherto found in any printing. An Introduction and Explanatory Notes, as well as maps and illustrations, enrich this volume. The Appendices publish materials relevant to Conrad's maritime career and to the publishing of the American serial, and the Apparatus allows the reader to follow the creative process.

Charting a homeward-bound voyage from Bombay to London aboard a sailing ship, The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' (1897) captured the late-Victorian era's maritime obsession and identified the strikingly original talent of Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) as a sea writer in what has proved to be a landmark of sea literature. The Introduction situates the novel in Conrad's career and traces its origins and reception. Explanatory notes illuminate literary and historical references, identify real-life places and indicate Conrad's sources and influences. The essay on the text and the apparatus lay out the history of the work's composition and publication, and detail interventions by Conrad's typists, compositors and editors. Also included are notes explaining literary and historical references, a glossary of nautical terms, illustrations, including maps and pictures of early drafts, and appendixes. This edition of The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' presents the novel and its preface in forms more authoritative than any so far printed, and restores a text that has circulated in defective forms since its original publication.

A Set of Six (1908) is one of Conrad's most versatile and varied compositions, embracing diverse interests and settings, multiple tonal qualities and a medley of short-story forms (ranging from the novella in 'The Duel' to the anecdotal tale in 'The Informer'). The volume's wide-ranging introduction offers a careful evaluation of the origins and sources of the individual stories, while also measuring their early reception as a published collection. Explanatory notes clarify literary and historical references, identify real-life places and people, and indicate borrowings and Gallicisms. The lengthy textual essay and its accompanying apparatus lay out the history of composition and publication, detailing interventions made by Conrad's typists, compositors and editors. Also included are appendices, allowing the reader first-hand access to Conrad's source material; glossaries of nautical and foreign terms; and illustrations in the form of maps and reproductions of early drafts. By returning to (and respecting) Conrad's own early manuscript and typescript forms, this edition presents the collection and its preface in a form more authoritative than any so far printed.

Joseph Conrad's Polish background, his extensive travels and his detached view of his adopted country, Britain, gave him a perspective unique among English writers of the twentieth century. Combining Continental and British influences, Victorian and Modernist styles, he was an artist acutely responsive to his age, whose works reflect and chronicle its shaping forces. This volume examines the biographical, historical, cultural and political contexts that fashioned his works. Written by a specialist, each short chapter covers a specific theme in relation to Conrad's life and work: letters, Modernism, the sea, the Polish and French languages, the First World War, and many other topics. This book will appeal to scholars as well as to those beginning their study of this extraordinary writer. It shows how this combination of different contexts allowed Conrad to become a key transitional figure in the early emergence of British literary modernism.

'I asked myself what I was doing there, with a sensation of panic in my heart as though I had blundered into a place of cruel and absurd mysteries not fit for a human being to behold'. Charles Marlow's dark intuition here arrives at the culmination of his physical and psychological quest in search of the infamous ivory-trader Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's most famous short story, Heart of Darkness. Ambiguously drawn to the powerful 'voice' of this autocratic European who has become a self-proclaimed ruler in an African colony, Marlow is increasingly embroiled in Kurtz's life and death: he is finally forced into a radical questioning, not only of his own assumptions, but also of the civilized and imperial pretensions of Western Europe. Offering a freshly-researched text based on the writer's original documents, this edition presents a classic of early modernist fiction in a version that, for the first time, recovers Conrad's preferred wordings, punctuation and narrative structure.

'I asked myself what I was doing there, with a sensation of panic in my heart as though I had blundered into a place of cruel and absurd mysteries not fit for a human being to behold'. Charles Marlow's dark intuition here arrives at the culmination of his physical and psychological quest in search of the infamous ivory-trader Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's most famous short story, Heart of Darkness. Ambiguously drawn to the powerful 'voice' of this autocratic European who has become a self-proclaimed ruler in an African colony, Marlow is increasingly embroiled in Kurtz's life and death: he is finally forced into a radical questioning, not only of his own assumptions, but also of the civilized and imperial pretensions of Western Europe. Offering a freshly-researched text based on the writer's original documents, this edition presents a classic of early modernist fiction in a version that, for the first time, recovers Conrad's preferred wordings, punctuation and narrative structure.

When Joseph Conrad’s novel Chance appeared in serial form in the New York Herald in 1912 and in book form in 1914 it established the author’s financial security for the first time. Following years of struggle to reach a wide audience for his fiction, Conrad benefitted from the American marketing of this novel for the women readers of romance. Aggressive advertising promoted the writer’s new focus on a female protagonist and Conrad’s division of the story’s location between land and sea. The novel proved popular and lucrative. Yet in spite of its economic success, Chance remains one of Conrad’s less well-known narratives. This fresh new collection of essays from both young and established scholars opens up a lively critical debate taking Chance beyond the status of best-selling romance. In a striking re-evaluation of the novel these writers examine Chance’s innovative narrative strategies, its up-to-the-minute commentary on female politics, contemporary ethics, as well as its antecedents in classical debate and the significance of Conrad’s last use of his seaman narrator Marlow.

In the century since its publication in 1904, Nostromo has taken its place among Conrad’s masterpieces as a panoramic novel of revolution and a profound meditation on history and the effects of “material interests” on human destiny.The eight new essays brought together in this volume examine the novel from various perspectives: as an epic, as a study in colonialism and the problem of “homecoming,” as an exploration of free will and determinism, as a textual artefact, and as a reflection upon earlier works of European literature by Coleridge, Pushkin, and others.

This collection of thirteen essays by writers from several countries lavishly celebrates the centenary of the publication of Conrad’s The Secret Agent. It reconsiders one of Conrad’s most important political novels from a variety of critical perspectives and presents a stimulating documentary section as well as specially commissioned maps and new contextualizing illustrations. Much new information is provided on the novel’s sources, and the work is placed in new several contexts. The volume is essential reading on this novel both for students studying it as a set text as well as for scholars of the late-Victorian and early Modernist periods.