Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski (3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Polish-British novelist and story write He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language; though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he came to be regarded a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote novels and stories, many in nautical settings, that depict crises of human individuality in the midst of what he saw as an indifferent, inscrutable and amoral world.
Conrad is considered a literary impressionist by some and an early modernist by others, though his works also contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters, as in Lord Jim, for example, have influenced numerous authors. Many dramatic films have been adapted from and inspired by his works. Numerous writers and critics have commented that his fictional works, written largely in the first two decades of the 20th century, seem to have anticipated later world events.
Writing near the peak of the British Empire, Conrad drew on the national experiences of his native Poland—during nearly all his life, parcelled out among three occupying empires—and on his own experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world—including imperialism and colonialism—and that profoundly explore the human psyche.
Novels
Almayer's Folly (1895)
An Outcast of the Islands (1896)
The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' (1897)
Heart of Darkness (1899)
Lord Jim (1900)
The Inheritors (with Ford Madox Ford) (1901)
Typhoon (1902, begun 1899)
The End of the Tether (written in 1902; collected in Youth, a Narrative and Two Other Stories, 1902)
Romance (with Ford Madox Ford, 1903)
Nostromo (1904)
The Secret Agent (1907)
Under Western Eyes (1911)
Chance (1913)
Victory (1915)
The Shadow Line (1917)
The Arrow of Gold (1919)
The Rescue (1920)
The Nature of a Crime (1923, with Ford Madox Ford)
The Rover (1923)
Suspense (1925; unfinished, published posthumously)
Stories
"The Black Mate": written, according to Conrad, in 1886; may be counted as his “opus double zero”?; published 1908; posthumously collected in Tales of Hearsay, 1925.
"The Idiots": Conrad's truly first short story, which may be counted as his opus zero, was written during his honeymoon (1896), published in The Savoy periodical, 1896, and collected in Tales of Unrest, 1898.
"The Lagoon": composed 1896; published in Cornhill Magazine, 1897; collected in Tales of Unrest, 1898: "It is the first short story I ever wrote."
"An Outpost of Progress": written 1896; published in Cosmopolis, 1897, and collected in Tales of Unrest, 1898: "My next [second] effort in short-story writing"; it shows numerous thematic affinities with Heart of Darkness; in 1906, Conrad described it as his "best story".
"The Return": completed early 1897, while writing "Karain"; never published in magazine form; collected in Tales of Unrest, 1898: "[A]ny kind word about 'The Return' (and there have been such words said at different times) awakens in me the liveliest gratitude, for I know how much the writing of that fantasy has cost me in sheer toil, in temper, and in disillusion." Conrad, who suffered while writing this psychological chef-d'oeuvre of introspection, once remarked: "I hate it."
"Karain: A Memory": written February–April 1897; published November 1897 in Blackwood's Magazine and collected in Tales of Unrest, 1898: "my third short story in... order of time".
"Youth": written 1898; collected in Youth, a Narrative, and Two Other Stories, 1902
"Falk": novella / story, written early 1901; collected only in Typhoon and Other Stories, 1903
"Amy Foster": composed 1901; published in the Illustrated London News, December 1901, and collected in Typhoon and Other Stories, 1903.
"To-morrow": written early 1902; serialised in The Pall Mall Magazine, 1902, and collected in Typhoon and Other Stories, 1903
"Gaspar Ruiz": written after Nostromo in 1904–5; published in The Strand Magazine, 1906, and collected in A Set of Six, 1908 (UK), 1915 (US). This story was the only piece of Conrad's fiction ever adapted by the author for cinema, as Gaspar the Strong Man, 1920.
"An Anarchist": written late 1905; serialised in Harper's Magazine, 1906; collected in A Set of Six, 1908 (UK), 1915 (US)
"The Informer": written before January 1906; published, December 1906, in Harper's Magazine, and collected in A Set of Six, 1908 (UK), 1915 (US)
"The Brute": written early 1906; published in The Daily Chronicle, December 1906; collected in A Set of Six, 1908 (UK), 1915 (US)
"The Duel: A Military Story": serialised in the UK in The Pall Mall Magazine, early 1908, and later that year in the US as "The Point of Honor", in the periodical Forum; collected in A Set of Six in 1908 and published by Garden City Publishing in 1924. Joseph Fouché makes a cameo appearance.
"Il Conde" (i.e., "Conte" [The Count]): appeared in Cassell's Magazine (UK), 1908, and Hampton's (US), 1909; collected in A Set of Six, 1908 (UK), 1915 (US)
"The Secret Sharer": written December 1909; published in Harper's Magazine, 1910, and collected in Twixt Land and Sea, 1912
"Prince Roman": written 1910, published 1911 in The Oxford and Cambridge Review; posthumously collected in Tales of Hearsay, 1925; based on the story of Prince Roman Sanguszko of Poland (1800–81)
"A Smile of Fortune": a long story, almost a novella, written in mid-1910; published in London Magazine, February 1911; collected in 'Twixt Land and Sea, 1912
"Freya of the Seven Isles": a near-novella, written late 1910–early 1911; published in The Metropolitan Magazine and London Magazine, early 1912 and July 1912, respectively; collected in 'Twixt Land and Sea, 1912
"The Partner": written 1911; published in Within the Tides, 1915
"The Inn of the Two Witches": written 1913; published in Within the Tides, 1915
"Because of the Dollars": written 1914; published in Within the Tides, 1915
"The Planter of Malata": written 1914; published in Within the Tides, 1915
"The Warrior's Soul": written late 1915–early 1916; published in Land and Water, March 1917; collected in Tales of Hearsay, 1925
"The Tale": Conrad's only story about World War I; written 1916, first published 1917 in The Strand Magazine; posthumously collected in Tales of Hearsay, 1925
Essays
"Autocracy and War" (1905)
The Mirror of the Sea (collection of autobiographical essays first published in various magazines 1904–06), 1906
A Personal Record (also published as Some Reminiscences), 1912
The First News, 1918
The Lesson of the Collision: A monograph upon the loss of the "Empress of Ireland", 1919
The Polish Question, 1919
The Shock of War, 1919
Notes on Life and Letters, 1921
Notes on My Books, 1921
Last Essays, edited by Richard Curle, 1926
The Congo Diary and Other Uncollected Pieces, edited by Zdzisław Najder, 1978