English novelist, born in Poland, his full name having been Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski. He learnt French in infancy, but did not learn English until he was nearly twenty. At Constantinople, where he had gone with the intention of joining the Russians against the Turks, he joined the French merchant navy. Later on he found his way to Lowestoft in England, and, after obtaining his mate’s certificate, he sailed for the East in an English ship. The story of this voyage is told in Youth, and other Tales (1902). His chief other volumes are Almayer’s Folly (1895), An Outcast of the Islands (1896), The Nigger of the Narcissus (1897), Tales of Unrest (1898), Lord Jim (1900), Typhoon (1903), The Mirror of the Sea (1906), and, with F. M. Hueffer, Romance (1903). All of these are remarkable for their vigorous English style, and the vivid description of exotic scenes; the author being especially successful in tracing the effects of tropical surrounding and the contact with Asiatics on European sailors and traders. His play One Day More was produced by the Stage Society in June 1905. Later work includes a study of the revolutionary temperament, Under Western Eyes (1911); an autobiographical set of Reminiscences (1912); three volumes of short stories, ’Twixt Land and Sea (1912), Within the Tides (1915) and The Shadow Line (1917); as well as four novels, Chance (1914); Victory (1915); The Arrow of Gold (1919) and The Rescue (1920). A dramatized version of Victory was played at the Globe theatre, London, in 1920. See also “A Familiar Preface,” “From ‘Lord Jim’,” “Victory over Death” and Nostromo.
