From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joseph Conrad (born Józef
Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski;[1] (3
December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Polish-born British novelist, who became
a British subject in 1886.
He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in English[2] though
he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties (and then
always with a marked Polish accent). He wrote stories and novels,
predominantly with a nautical or seaboard setting, that depict trials of the
human spirit by the demands of duty and honor.
Conrad was a master prose stylist who brought a distinctly non-English tragic
sensibility into English literature.[3] While
some of his works have a strain of
romanticism, he is viewed as a precursor of
modernist literature. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters have
influenced many authors.[4]
Films have been adapted from or inspired by Conrad's Victory, Lord
Jim, The
Secret Agent, An
Outcast of the Islands, The
Rover, The
Shadow Line, The Duel, Heart
of Darkness, and Nostromo.
Writing in the heyday of the British
Empire, Conrad drew upon his experiences in the French and later the British
Merchant Navy to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a
worldwide empire while also plumbing the depths of the human soul.