Youth, Heart of Darkness, The End of the Tether

The most authoritative scholarly edition of Conrad's most important narratives, with explanatory and textual notes, critical introduction and chronology.

Joseph Conrad (Author), Owen Knowles (Edited by)

9780521197991, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 October 2010

544 pages, 7 b/w illus.
22.2 x 14.7 x 3.5 cm, 0.78 kg

Review of the series: 'The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Joseph Conrad aims to be definitive, and [the books] have both scholarly and physical weight … The explanatory notes are compendious and thoughtfully arranged … invaluable to scholars of Conrad, modernist literary composition and late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literary practices and processes … These elegant and comprehensive volumes are a must for university libraries … [the series] is without question a definitive piece of scholarship.' Andrew Frayn, Variants: The Journal of the European Society for Textual Scholarship

'Youth', Heart of Darkness and 'The End of the Tether' make up Conrad's most celebrated collection of short narratives. Heart of Darkness forms its sombre centrepiece: set in the Congo of the 1890s, this haunting and widely influential Modernist masterpiece explores the limits of human experience as well as the nightmarish realities and consequences of imperialism. The Cambridge edition presents this trio of stories and Conrad's preface to the collection in forms more authoritative than any so far published. The introduction situates the stories in Conrad's publishing career, traces their sources and surveys contemporary reception. The edition includes detailed explanatory and contextual notes, a glossary of nautical terms, maps and illustrations. A textual essay and comprehensive apparatus reveal the history of each story's composition, revision and publication. This volume will allow scholars to see these familiar stories in a fresh light, by returning to Conrad's original texts.

General editors' preface
Chronology
Introduction
'Youth', Heart of Darkness, 'The End of the Tether'
Explanatory notes
Glossary of nautical terms
The texts: an essay
Textual apparatus
Textual notes
Appendix A. Manuscript pagination: 'Youth' and Heart of Darkness
Appendix B. Blackwood's Memorandum of Agreement for the Youth Volume.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB], Literature & literary studies [D]