Best Selling Books by Joseph Conrad

La novela de Lord Jim, del autor polaco nacionalizado británico Joseph Conrad, se publicó en el año 1900. Aunque siempre se ha considerado una de las obras culminantes del género de aventuras, en la que su autor, como antiguo marino que era, reflejó su conocimiento de la mar, de sus gentes y de países exóticos, Conrad pretendió sobre todo trazar el retrato psicológico de un joven idealista y sediento de aventuras que descubre cuán difícil es el valor en situaciones extremas.

Nostromo is set in the South American country of Costaguana, and more specifically in that country''s Occidental Province and its port city of Sulaco. Though Costaguana is a fictional nation, its geography as described in the book resembles real-life Colombia. Costaguana has a long history of tyranny, revolution and warfare, but has recently experienced a period of stability under the dictator Ribiera. Charles Gould is a native Costaguanero of English descent who owns an important silver-mining concession near the key port of Sulaco. He is tired of the political instability in Costaguana and its concomitant corruption, and uses his wealth to support Ribiera''s government, which he believes will finally bring stability to the country after years of misrule and tyranny by self-serving dictators. Instead, Gould''s refurbished silver mine and the wealth it has generated inspires a new round of revolutions and self-proclaimed warlords, plunging Costaguana into chaos. Among others, the forces of the revolutionary General Montero invade Sulaco after securing the inland capital; Gould, adamant that his silver should not become spoil for his enemies, orders Nostromo, the trusted "Capataz de Cargadores" (Head Longshoreman) of Sulaco, to take it offshore so it can be sold into international markets. Nostromo is an Italian expatriate who has risen to his position through his bravery and daring exploits. ("Nostromo" is Italian for "shipmate" or "boatswain", but the name could also be considered a corruption of the Italian phrase "nostro uomo" or "nostr''uomo", meaning "our man"). Nostromo''s real name is Giovanni Battista Fidanza-Fidanza meaning "trust" in archaic Italian.

Almayer''s Folly, published in 1895, is Joseph Conrad''s first novel. Set in the late 19th century, it centers on the life of the Dutch trader Kaspar Almayer in the Borneo jungle and his relationship to his mixed heritage daughter Nina Almayer''s Folly is about a poor businessman who dreams of finding a hidden gold mine and becoming very wealthy. He is a white European, married to a native Malayan; they have one daughter named Nina. He fails to find the goldmine, and comes home saddened. Previously, he had heard that the British were to conquer the Pantai River, and he had built a large, lavish house near where he resided at the time, in order to welcome the invading country to the native land. However, the conquest never took place, and the house remained unfinished. Some passing Dutch seamen had called the house "Almayer''s Folly." Now, Almayer continually goes out for long trips, but eventually he stops doing so and stays home with his hopeless daydreams of riches and splendor. His native wife loathes him for this. One day, a Malayan prince, Dain Maroola, came to see Almayer about trading, and while there he falls in love with Nina. Mrs. Almayer kept arranging meetings for Nina and Dain. She wanted them to marry so her daughter could stay native, because she was highly distrustful of the white men and their ways. Dain left but vowed to return to help Almayer find the gold mine. When he does return, he goes straight to Lakamba, a Malayan rajah, and told him that he found the gold mine and that some Dutchmen had captured his ship. The rajah tells him to kill Almayer before the Dutch arrive because he is not needed to find the gold now. The following morning, an unidentifiable native corpse is found floating in the river, wearing an ankle bracelet very similar to Dain''s. Almayer was distraught because Dain was his only chance at finding the secret mine. (The corpse was actually of his slave, who had died when a canoe overturned. Mrs. Almayer suggested that Dain put his anklet and ring on the body.) Mrs. Almayer planned to smuggle Dain away from the Dutch, so he would not be arrested. She snuck Nina away from her father, who was drinking with the Dutch. When he awoke from his drunken stupor, a native slave girl told him where Nina had run away to, and Almayer tracked her to Dain''s hiding place. Nina refused to go back to avoid the slurs of all the white society. During all this arguing, the slave girl had informed the Dutch of Dain''s whereabouts. Almayer said that he could never forgive Nina but would help them escape by taking them to the mouth of the river, where a canoe would rescue them from the Dutch. After they had escaped, Almayer erased the lover''s footprints, and went back to his house. Mrs. Almayer ran away to the rajah for protection, taking all Dain''s dowry with her. All alone, Almayer broke all his furniture in his home office, piled it in the center of the room, and burned it, along with his entire house, to the ground. He spent the rest of his days in "[His] Folly," where he began smoking opium to forget his daughter. He eventually died there.

Classic shortish story by Conrad that relates his self-thought alienation from British society, as a young foreign man survives a shipwreck off the coast of Kent, England only to be shunned by most of the townsfolk. The one exception is the loving, if dull-witted, Miss Foster.Includes a biography of the author.

Almayer''s Folly is about a poor businessman who dreams of finding a hidden gold mine and becoming very wealthy. He is a white European, married to a native Malayan; they have one daughter named Nina. He fails to find the goldmine, and comes home saddened. Previously, he had heard that the British were to conquer the Pantai River, and he had built a large, lavish house near where he resided at the time, in order to welcome the invaders. However, the conquest never took place, and the house remained unfinished. Some passing Dutch seamen had called the house "Almayer''s Folly". Now, Almayer continually goes out for long trips, but eventually he stops doing so and stays home with his hopeless daydreams of riches and splendor. His native wife loathes him for this.

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How is this book unique? Font adjustments & biography included Unabridged (100% Original content) Illustrated About The Nigger of the Narcissus by Joseph Conrad The Nigger of the ''Narcissus'': A Tale of the Sea is a novella by Joseph Conrad. Because of its quality compared to earlier works, some have described it as marking the start of Conrad''s major, or middle, period; others have placed it as the best work of his early, or first, period. The title character, James Wait, is a dying West Indian black sailor on board the merchant ship Narcissus sailing from Bombay to London. Wait, suffering from tuberculosis, becomes seriously ill during the voyage, and his plight arouses the humanitarian sympathies of many of the crew. However, the ship''s master Captain Alistoun and an old sailor named Singleton remain concerned primarily with their duties and appear indifferent to Wait''s condition. Off the Cape of Good Hope the ship capsizes onto her beam-ends with half her hull submerged, and the crew clings onto the deck for an entire night and day, waiting in silence for the ship to turn over the rest of the way and sink. Alistoun refuses to allow the masts to be severed, which might allow the hull to right itself. Five of the men, realizing that Wait is unaccounted for, climb down to his cabin and rescue him at their own peril. When the storm passes and a wind returns, Alistoun directs the weary men to catch the wind, which succeeds in righting the ship. Later in the voyage Alistoun prevents a near-mutiny led by a slippery Cockney named Donkin. Wait eventually succumbs and dies within sight of land, as Singleton had predicted he would.

Polish author Joseph Conrad is considered to be one of the greatest English-language novelists, a remarkable achievement considering English was not his first language. Conrad s literary works often featured a nautical setting, reflecting the influences of his early career in the Merchant Navy, and his depictions of the struggles of the human spirit in a cold, indifferent world are best exemplified in such seminal works as Heart of Darkness, Lord JimM, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, and Typhoon. Regarded as a forerunner of modernist literature, Conrad s writing style and characters have influenced such distinguished writers as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William S. Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, and George Orwell, among many others. Many of Conrad s novels have been adapted for film, most notably Heart of Darkness, which served as the inspiration and foundation for Francis Ford Coppola s 1979 film Apocalypse Now

The Shadow-Line is a short novel based at sea by Joseph Conrad; it is one of his later works, being written from February to December 1915. It was first published in 1916 as a serial in New York''s Metropolitan Magazine (September-October) in the English Review (September 1916-March 1917) and published in book form in 1917 in the UK (March) and America (April). The novella depicts the development of a young man upon taking a captaincy in the Orient, with the shadow line of the title representing the threshold of this development.The novella is notable for its dual narrative structure. The full, subtitled title of the novel is The Shadow-Line, A Confession, which immediately alerts the reader to the retrospective nature of the novella. The ironic constructions following from the conflict between the ''young'' protagonist (who is never named) and the ''old'' drive much of the underlying points of the novella, namely the nature of wisdom, experience and maturity. Conrad also extensively uses irony by comparison in the work, with characters such as Captain Giles and the ship''s ''factotum'' Ransome used to emphasise strengths and weaknesses of the protagonist.