This is Conrad's most subtle, compressed and proleptic work. Acclaimed as a supreme literary achievement, it has also come under literary, historical, and political attack. The profoundly influential
R. B. Cunninghame Graham (1852–1936) was one of the most brilliant and mercurial characters of his day. Known as 'Don Roberto' and 'the Modern Don Quixote' because of his Spanish blood and impetuous life-style, and as 'the Uncrowned King of Scotland' because of his descent from King Robert II, he was a paradoxical man whose career was astonishingly varied. After an early period as an adventurer, when he worked as a cattle-rancher and horse-dealer in South America and Texas, he embarked on a stormy political career. He was the first socialist in Parliament, was gaoled after assailing the police at the Battle of Trafalgar Square on Bloody Sunday, 1887, later became the founder and president of the first Labour Party, and was eventually elected president of the Scottish National Party. Meanwhile he travelled in Morocco disguised as an Arab sheik and prospected for gold in Spain.
One of Joseph Conrad's greatest novels, Lord Jim brilliantly combines adventure and analysis. Haunted by the memory of a moment of lost nerve during a disastrous voyage, Jim submits to condemnation by
This volume contains "Typhoon," "The Secret Sharer," "Falk," and "Amy Foster." "Typhoon", a story of a steamship and her crew beset by a tempest, is a masterpiece of descriptive virtuosity and moral
In his first tetralogy of history plays (Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3, and Richard III), Shakespeare offered the most extensive dramatic sequence since the great days of ancient Greek drama in Athens.
When Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure appeared in 1895, it immediately caused scandal and controversy. Its frank treatment of Jude's sexual relationships with Arabella and Sue, its scathing criticisms
Drawing out the distinctive thematic preoccupations and technical devices in Conrad's writing, Professor Watts explores Conrad's importance and influence as a moral, social and political commentator.
Few novels have caused more of a stir than Tess of the d’Urbervilles. In England, the Duchess of Abercorn stated that she divided her dinner-guests according to their view of Tess. If they deemed her
