Select Works of Joseph Conrad (4 vols.)

Joseph Conrad’s enigmatic and controversial novella was first published in 1899 as a serial story in Blackwood’s Magazine. Drawing from his own experiences as a captain of a steamship on the Congo River, Conrad crafts a narrative that explores the themes of civilization and barbarianism, and the corruption of man. His story follows a sailor’s journey on a riverboat up to Congo, where he is confronted with the brutality of colonialism and the dark side of humanity.

Lord Jim tells the story of Jim, a young British seaman. The novel opens with Jim sailing as firstmate on the Patna which is carrying pilgrims headed for Mecca. Upon discovering the Patna is sinking, Jim and the rest of the crew abandon the ship and the passengers, leaving them to death. However, unbeknownst to the crew, the passengers are picked up by another vessel, which leads to the exposure of the crew’s guilt. This leads to an inquest, which all the crew members except Jim are able to evade. Jim, soon finding himself abandoned by the rest of the crew, is left to face public censure and humiliation alone. The novel continues to follow Jim as he deals with the consequences of his weakness that fatal day, eventually escaping to the island country of Patusan, where he seeks to redeem himself.

Conrad sets Nostromo in a mining port city of a fictitious South American republic, Costaguana, which is plagued with tyranny, revolution, and unrest. The narrative follows Charles Gould, the owner of a significant silver-mining concession in Costaguana, and the Italian expatriate, Nostromo, who Gould hires to smuggle his silver out of reach of the revolutionaries. With shipwrecks, battles, mystery, and romance, Nostromo is a classic adventure novel, displaying Conrad’s skill at writing exciting stories while exploring deeper themes of morality and corruption. This novel once provoked great American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald to remark, “I’d rather have written Nostromo than any other novel.”

Almayer’s Folly was Conrad’s first novel, published in 1895. It tells the story of a Dutch trader named Kaspar Almayer, who went to the Borneo jungle in hopes of finding gold, but becomes disappointed and disenchanted, ending his venture in tragedy. Kaspar marries a native Malayan while on his failed quest, and builds an extravagant house on the banks of the Pantai River, believing (mistakenly) that the British will soon be conquering the area. It begins to be known as “Almayer’s Folly.” Kaspar and his wife have one daughter, Nina, who becomes central to the narrative, forcing Kaspar to negotiate the difficult relationship between cultures, generations, and ideals.