Joseph Conrad

The mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, rage - who can tell - but truth - truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder - the man knows, and can look on without a wink'. Marlow, a seaman, tells of a journey up the Congo. His goal is the troubled European and ivory trader Kurtz. Worshipped and feared by invaders as well as natives, Kurtz has become a godlike figure, his presence pervading the jungle like a thick, obscuring mist. As his boat labours further upstream, closer and closer to Kurtz's extraordinary and terrible domain, so Marlow finds his faith in himself and civilization crumbling. Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" has been considered the most important indictment of the evils of imperialism written to date. The "Penguin English Library" - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

Když se petrohradský student Razumov vrátí ze školy domů, najde tu spolužáka, který spáchal atentát na nenáviděného ministra vnitra a teď prosí o pomoc. Svět, jak ho mladík znal, tím bere zasvé. V ovzduší carského Ruska počátku 20. století budou už Razumova všude pronásledovat nepovolané oči jiných kariéristů, obavy o budoucnost, vlastní občanské postoje i výčitky svědomí. Poté, co se rozhodne kolegu zradit, dostihnou ho i v komunitě ruských uprchlíků v Ženevě, kam dorazil se zvláštním posláním… Dramatický popis Razumovova zločinu a trestu je považován za Conradův nejpůsobivější román mimo jiné proto, že se v něm anglický klasik polského původu trefuje do britské blahosklonnosti. „Ruský příběh určený západním uším“ přináší i rozpravu o podivných formách tamního revolucionářství počínaje Dostojevským či Bakuninem a konče Černyševským a sortou „profesionálních socialistů“, k nimž se svého času v Ženevě přidružil bolševický vůdce Uljanov-Lenin. Výsledkem je neobyčejně důkladný ponor do psychologie země, kterou mladý Conrad poznal na Sibiři, kde ve vyhnanství zemřeli oba jeho rodiče, a která dodnes děsí Západ. Z tragikomického vylíčení udavačovy bezvýchodnosti ve světě, jenž buď jedince neslýchaně týrá, anebo není s to posoudit míru jeho viny, vyplývá, jak krutě se postoje obou Evrop míjejí. Liberálně soucitný Západ Rusku nerozumí – a Rusko ani nechce, aby mu někdo rozuměl. Pro tuto nevyzpytatelnou velmoc je dodnes typická „četnost mimořádného“ i lavírování mezi čirým hulvátstvím a odevzdaným mysticismem. Conradovo mistrovské dílo tak stále promlouvá svou prorockou naléhavostí.

When "Lord Jim" first appeared in 1900, many took Joseph Conrad to task for couching an entire novel in the form of an extended conversation - a ripping good yarn, if you like. Conrad defended his method, insisting that people really do talk for that long, and listen as well. In fact his chatty masterwork requires no defense - it offers up not only linguistic pleasures but a timeless exploration of morality. The eponymous Jim is a young, good-looking, genial, and naive water-clerk on the Patna, a cargo ship plying Asian waters.He is, we are told, 'the kind of fellow you would, on the strength of his looks, leave in charge of the deck'. He also harbours romantic fantasies of adventure and heroism - which are promptly scuttled one night when the ship collides with an obstacle and begins to sink. Acting on impulse, Jim jumps overboard and lands in a lifeboat, which happens to be bearing the unscrupulous captain and his cohorts away from the disaster. The Patna, however, manages to stay afloat. The foundering vessel is towed into port - and since the officers have strategically vanished, Jim is left to stand trial for abandoning the ship and its 800 passengers.

In this tale of colonial exploitation, the narrator, Marlowe, journeys deep into the heart of Africa. But there he encounters Kurtz, an idealist apparently crazed and depraved by his power over the natives, and the meeting prompts Marlowe to reflect on the darkness at the heart of all men.

An impenetrable mystery seems destined to hang for ever over this act of madness or despair.' Mr Verloc, the secret agent, keeps a shop in London's Soho where he lives with his wife Winnie, her infirm mother, and her idiot brother, Stevie. When Verlo c is reluctantly involved in an anarchist plot to blow up the Greenwich Observatory things go disastrously wrong, and what appears to be 'A Simple Tale' proves to involve politicians, policemen, foreign diplomats and London's fashionable society in t he darkest and most surprising interrelations. Based on the text which Conrad's first English readers enjoyed, this new edition includes a critical introduction which describes Conrad's great London novel as the realization of a 'monstrous town', a p lace of idiocy, madness, criminality, and butchery.

'A sudden passion of anxious impatience rushed through my veins and gave me such a sense of the intensity of existence as I have never felt before or since.' link title to catalogue entry](exact date?)Written in 1915, The Shadow-Line is based upon events and experiences from twenty-seven years earlier to which Conrad returned obsessively in his fiction. A young sea captain's first command brings with it a succession of crises: his sea is becalmed, the crew laid low by fever, and his deranged first mate is convinced that the ship is haunted by the malignant spirit of a previous captain. This is indeed a work full of 'sudden passions', in which Conrad is able to show how the full intensity of existence can be experienced by the man who, in the words of the older Captain Giles, is prepared to 'stand up to his bad luck, to his mistakes, to his conscience'. A subtle and penetrating analysis of the nature of manhood, The Shadow-Line investigates varieties of masculinity and desire in a subtext that counterpoints the tale's seemingly conventional surface.

Whenever two Russians come together, the shadow of autocracy is with them...haunting the secret of their silences.' First published in 1911, Under Western Eyes traces the experiences of Razumov, a young Russian student of philosophy who is uninvolved in politics or protest. Against his will he finds himself caught up in the aftermath of a terrorist bombing directed against the Tsarist authorities. He is pulled in different directions - by his conscience and his ambitions, by powerful opposed pol itical forces, but most of all by personal emotions he is unable to suppress. Set in St Petersburg and Geneva, the novel is in part a critical response to Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment but it is also a startlingly modern book. Viewed through the 'Western eyes' of Conrad's English narrator, Razumov's story forces the reader to confront the same moral issues: the defensibility of terrorist resistance to tyranny, the loss of individual privacy in a surveillance society, and the demands thrown u p by the interplay of power and knowledge. This new edition is based on the first English edition text, and has a new chronology and bibliography.

HEART OF DARKNESS*AN OUTPOST OF PROGRESS*KARAIN*YOUTH The finest of all Conrad's tales, 'Heart of Darkness' is set in an atmosphere of mystery and menace, and tells of Marlow's perilous journey up the Congo River to relieve his employer's agent, the renowned and formidable Mr Kurtz. What he sees on his journey, and his eventual encounter with Kurtz, horrify and perplex him, and call into question the very bases of civilization and human nature. Endlessly reinterpreted by critics and adapted for film, radio, and television, the story shows Conrad at his most intense and sophisticated. The other three tales in this volume depict corruption and obsession, and question racial assumptions. Set in the exotic surroundings of Africa, Malaysia. and the east, they variously appraise the glamour, folly, and rapacity of imperial adventure. This revised edition uses the English first edition texts and has a new chronology and bibliography.

TYPHOON * FALK * AMY FOSTER *THE SECRET SHARER The four tales in this volume share autobiographical origins in Conrad's experience at sea and his exile from Poland, the country of his birth. 'Typhoon' is the story of a steamship and her crew beset by tempest, and of the stolid captain whose dogged courage is tested to the limit. In 'Falk' a taciturn young woman is bizarrely courted by a tug-boat master who is haunted by a terrible secret. 'Amy Foster' tells of an emigrant Pole struggling to over come isolation and prejudice in England. The final tale, 'The Secret Sharer', is Conrad's most famous short story, a masterpiece of suspense and ambiguity. Giving sanctuary to a fugitive sailor, a young sea-captain risks his ship and his command in o rder to save him. This revised edition uses the English first edition texts and has a new chronology and bibliography.

no consideration, no delicacy, no tenderness, no scruples should stand in the way of a woman ... from taking the shortest cut towards securing for herself the easiest possible existence' Chance(1914) was the first of Conrad's novels to bring him popu lar success and it holds a unique place among his works. It tells the story of Flora de Barral, a vulnerable and abandoned young girl who is 'like a beggar,without a right to anything but compassion'. After her bankrupt father is imprisoned, she lear ns the harsh fact that a woman in her position 'has no resources but in herself. Her only means of action is to be what she is.' Flora's long struggle to achieve some dignity and happiness makes her Conrad's most moving female character. Reflecting t he contemporary interest in the New Woman and the Suffragette question, Chance also marks the final appearance of Marlow, Conrad's most effective and wise narrator. This revised edition uses the English first edition text and has a new chronology and bibliography.

'Victory, don't forget, has come out of my innermost self.' Victory was the last of Conrad's novels to be set in the Malay Archipelago. Sub-titled 'An Island Tale', it tells the story of Axel Heyst who, damaged by his dead father's nihilistic philosophy, has retreated from the world of commerce and colonial exploration to live alone on the island of Samburan. But Heyst's solitary existence ends when he rescues an English girl from her rapacious patron and takes her off to his retreat. She in turn recalls him to love and life, until the world breaks in on them once more with tragic consequences. In this love story Conrad created two of his psychologically most complex and compelling characters in a narrative of great erotic power. This new edition uses the English first edition text and has a new chronology and bibliography.

The only annotated edition available, An Outcast of the Islands (1896), Conrad's second novel, is a tale of intrigue in an eastern setting. Peter Willems, a clerk in Macassar, granted a "second chance" at a remote river trading post, falls ever more hopelessly into traps set by himself and others. A parable of human frailty, with love and death the major players, this is a story of a man unable to understand others and fated never to possess his own soul. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxf ord World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, includin g expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

To the white men in the waterside business and to the captain of ships he was just Jim - nothing more. He had, of course, another name, but he was anxious that it should not be pronounced.' Lord Jim tells the story of a young, idealistic Englishman - 'as unflinching as a hero in a book' - who is disgraced by a single act of cowardice while serving as an officer on the Patna, a merchant-ship sailing from an Eastern port. His life is blighted: an isolated scandal assumes horrifying proportions. An older man, Marlow, befriends Jim, and helps to establish him in Patusan, a remote Malay settlement. There he achieves a kind of peace, but his courage is put to the test once more. Lord Jim is one of the most profound and rewarding psychological nov els in English. Set in the context of social change and colonial expansion in late Victorian England, it embodies in Jim the values and the turmoil of a fading empire. In his introduction and notes to this new edition Jacques Berthoud explores the so cial and cultural dynamics that inform the novel.

Lord Jim je tragický príbeh mladého námorného dôstojníka, ktorého prenasleduje pocit, že stratil svoju česť, keď v zdanlivo beznádejnej situácii opustil potápajúcu sa loď bez ohľadu na ohrozených cestujúcich, a ktorý hľadá vykúpenie z viny v obetavej pomoci domorodcom v zapadnutej malajskej dedine pri obrane proti vpádu belošských kolonizátorov. Román vychádza pri príležitosti 150. výročia od narodenia tohto poľsko-anglického spisovateľa

Anglický kapitán Marlow se vydá na dramatickou pouť parníkem proti proudu řeky Kongo do samého středu Afriky, aby vyhledal přednostu Kurtze, o něhož má obchodní společnost vážné obavy. Skutečně ho najde v krajně zbědovaném stavu, otřeseného, zděšenéh o a na pokraji šílenství. Zpateční cestu Kurtz nepřežije. Když se Marlow setká s Kurtzovou snoubenkou, zapře jí jeho skutečná poslední slova a tvrdí, že pronesl pouze její jméno. Co vlastně umírající přednosta řekl a proč? Hrůzostrašný, hypnotizující příběh dá čtenáři zapomenout na celý vnější svět.Překlad: Jiří Munzar, Jiří Sirotek

Lord Jim tells the story of a young, idealistic Englishman--"as unflinching as a hero in a book"--who is disgraced by a single act of cowardice while serving as an officer on the Patna, a merchant-ship sailing from an eastern port. His life is ruined: an isolated scandal has assumed horrifying proportions. But, then he is befriended by an older man named Marlow who helps to establish him in exotic Patusan, a remote Malay settlement where his courage is put to the test once more. Lord Jim is a book about courage and cowardice, self-knowledge and personal growth. It is one of the most profound and rewarding psychological novels in English. Set in the context of social change and colonial expansion in late Victorian England, it embodies in Jim the values and turmoil of a fading empire. This new edition uses the first English edition text and includes a new introduction and notes by leading Conrad scholar Jacques Berthoud, glossaries, and an appendix on Conrad's sources and reading.About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.