A landmark collection of Ian Watt's essays on Joseph Conrad.

Thirteen essays exploring Conrad's dramatic and moral concepts, especially the importance of action and sacrifice.

Conrad and Nature is the first collection of critical essays examining nature and the environment in Joseph Conrad’s writings. Together, these essays by established and emerging scholars reveal both the crucial importance of nature in Conrad’s work, and the vital, ongoing relevance of Conrad’s treatment of the environment in our era of globalization and climate change. No richer subject matter for an environmentally-engaged criticism can be found than the Conradian contexts and themes under investigation in this volume: island cultures, colonial occupations, storms at sea, mining and extraction, inconstant weather, ecological collapse, and human communities competing for resources. The 17 essays collected here —13 new essays, and 4 excerpts from classic works of Conradian scholarship -- consolidate some of the most important voices and perspectives on Conrad’s relation to the natural world, and open new avenues for Conradian and environmental scholarship in the 21st century.

This collection of essays continues Adam Gillon's comparatist approach to Joseph Conrad, which he exhibited in three previous books: The Eternal Solitary: A Study of Joseph Conrad (1960 and 1964), Conrad and Shakespeare and Other Essays (1976), and Joseph Conrad (Tawyne English Authors Series), 1982. In the present collection, Gillon extends his perspectives by examining the affinities between Conrad's descriptive art and painting and film. Gillon presents a variety of new views and insights as he traces the connections between Conrad and such writers as Henry James and Vladimir Nabokov and compares Conradian characters Prince Roman and Peer Ivanovitch. Gillon's Polish background looms large in this collection. His mastery of the Polish language is apparent in the discussion of two Polish novels about Conrad's early life and in his translation of excerpts from these novels. The first and last chapters offer moving glimpses of Gillon's own Polish footprints, his initiation into Conrad lore, and the visit to his native land after a long absence. The intimacy and wry humor of these recollections are evident also in his essay about adapting Conrad to film, which is illustrated with excerpts from his scripts Under Western Eyes and Dark Country, his screenplay inspired by Heart of Darkness and Conradian themes. A native of Poland, Adam Gillon is professor emeritus of English and comparative literature at the State University of New York, New Paltz. He has lectured at universities in Canada, Israel, and Europe. His numerous publications include critical studies of Conrad, fiction, poetry, translations, articles, and reviews. He has written award-winning plays for screen, stage, and radio. He wrote, directed, and produced a feature film, The Bet. Gillon is president of the Joseph Conrad Society of America and founder and senior editor of its newsletter, Joseph Conrad Today.Raymond Brebach is an associate professor of humanities at Drexel University. He is a contributing editor for the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Joseph Conrad and he edits Joseph Conrad Today, the newsletter of the Joseph Conrad Society of America. He has written on the collaboration of Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford.

When Joseph Conrad’s novel Chance appeared in serial form in the New York Herald in 1912 and in book form in 1914 it established the author’s financial security for the first time. Following years of struggle to reach a wide audience for his fiction, Conrad benefitted from the American marketing of this novel for the women readers of romance. Aggressive advertising promoted the writer’s new focus on a female protagonist and Conrad’s division of the story’s location between land and sea. The novel proved popular and lucrative. Yet in spite of its economic success, Chance remains one of Conrad’s less well-known narratives. This fresh new collection of essays from both young and established scholars opens up a lively critical debate taking Chance beyond the status of best-selling romance. In a striking re-evaluation of the novel these writers examine Chance’s innovative narrative strategies, its up-to-the-minute commentary on female politics, contemporary ethics, as well as its antecedents in classical debate and the significance of Conrad’s last use of his seaman narrator Marlow.

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.