Joseph Conrad lived a life that was as fantastic as any of his fiction. Born in Poland on December 3, 1857, he died in England on August 3, 1924. This native of the European interior spent his youth at sea, and although relatively ignorant of the English language until the age of twenty, he ultimately became one of the greatest of English novelists and stylists. Conrad’s parents were aristocrats, ardent patriots who died when he was a child as a result of their revolutionary activities. He went to sea at sixteen, taught himself English and, after diligent study, gradually worked his way up until he passed his master’s examination and was given command of merchant ships in the Orient and on the Congo. At the age of thirty-two he decided to try his hand at writing, left the sea, married, and became the father of two sons. Although his work won the admiration of critics, sales were small, and debts and poor health plagued Conrad for many years. He was a nervous, introverted, gloomy man for whom writing was an agony, but he was rich in friends who appreciated his genius, among them Henry James, Stephen Crane, and Ford Madox Ford. Although the ocean and the mysterious lands that border it are often the setting for his books, the truth of human experience is his theme, depicted with vigor, rhythm, and passionate contemplation of reality.

Linda Dryden is Lecturer in Cultural Studies at Napier University, Edinburgh. She has published various articles on Conrad in such journals as The Conradian and Conradiana , and is the author of Joseph Conrad and the Imperial Romance (Macmillan, 2000). Dr. Dryden’s other interests include literary and cultural studies. She is currently editing a collection of essays on popular culture and writing a book on Robert Louis Stevenson, Oscar Wilde, and H. G. Wells.