Conrad in Perspective
Essays on Art and Fidelity

The volume offers new perspectives on Conrad's life and work by one of his most extraordinary critics.

Zdzislaw Najder (Author)

9780521573214, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 November 1997

256 pages
23.6 x 16.1 x 2.1 cm, 0.519 kg

'All of the … essays are admirably clear, neatly structured and cogently argued. All have an original point to make. And all are marked by enthusiasm for their subject. Even the most jaded Conrad reader will find much that is worthwhile in them.' Panorama

Zdzislaw Najder, one of the world's leading authorities on Joseph Conrad and author of the major biography Joseph Conrad: A Chronicle (1983), is widely acclaimed for his particular insights into Conrad's Polish background. The fruits of thirty years of Conrad study appear in this landmark volume of his essays, which explore a wide range of topics: Conrad's national and cultural heritage; his fictions, from the unfinished 'Sisters' and Lord Jim to The Secret Agent; his attitude towards Russia in general and Dostoevsky in particular; his concepts of man and society; and the role of the idea of honour in his work. In a series of more general essays Najder goes on to place Conrad's work within a broad European philosophical, political and literary context. Conrad in Perspective offers new insights into the life and work of one of the twentieth century's greatest novelists by one of his most perceptive critics.

1. Introduction, or confession of a mastodon
2. Conrad's Polish background or, from biography to a study of culture
3. Joseph Conrad's parents
4. Joseph Conrad and Tadeusz Bobrowski
5. The Sisters: a grandiose failure
6. Lord Jim: a romantic tragedy of honour
7. The Mirror of the Sea
8. A Personal Record
9. The Secret Agent or the melodrama of reality
10. Conrad, Russia, and Dostoevsky
11. Conrad and Rousseau: concepts of man and society
12. Conrad and the idea of honour
13. Joseph Conrad: a European writer
14. Joseph Conrad after a century
15. Joseph Conrad in his historical perspective
16. Fidelity and art: Joseph Conrad's cultural heritage and literary programme
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK]