Katherine Isobel Baxter. Joseph Conrad and the Swan Song of Romance. Ashgate, 2010.
"In the first critical study wholly devoted to Joseph Conrad's use of techniques associated with the literary tradition of romance, Baxter argues that Conrad's engagement with the genre invigorated his work throughout his career. Exploring the ways in which Conrad borrows from, alludes to, and subverts the tropes of romance, Baxter suggests that Conrad's ambivalent relationship with popular forms like the adventure novel is revealed in the way he uses romance conventions to disrupt narrative expectations and make visible ethical problems with Europe's colonial project. Baxter examines not only familiar novels like "Lord Jim" but also less-studied works such as "Romance" and "The Rover," using Robert Miles' model of the 'philosophical romance' to show that for Conrad, romance is also philosophically engaged with issues of ideology. Her study seeks to enable a new appreciation of the ways in which Conrad continued to experiment, even in his later fiction, and of the ethical import of that aesthetic experimentation."
Harold Bloom, ed. Joseph Conrad (Modern Critical Views). New Edition. Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2010.
Kausar Equbal. Joseph Conrad: His Mind and Work. Shipra Publications, 2010.
Richard J. Hand. Disparate Horrors: Adaptation and Joseph Conrad. University of Glamorgan, Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries, 2010.
Pawel Jedrzejko, Milton Reigelman, Zuzanna Szatanik, eds. Hearts of Darkness: Melville, Conrad and Narratives of Oppression. M-Studio, 2010.
"Critical essays from Melville and Conrad scholars from around the world, including John T. Matteson, Sanford Marovitz, Laurence Davies, T. Walter Herbert, Arthur Redding, Paula Kopacz, Yuji Kato, and Rodrigo Andres."
Paul Kirschner. Comparing Conrad: Essays on Joseph Conrad and His Implied Dialogues with Other Writers. Paul Kirschner, 2010.
Barbara Handke. First Command: A Psychological Revading of Joseph Conrad™s “The Secret Sharer” and The Shadow-Line. Galda Verlag, 2010.
Peter Lancelot Mallios. Our Conrad: Constituting American Modernity. Stanford University Press, 2010.
"Our Conrad is about the American reception of Joseph Conrad and its crucial role in the formation of modernism and American culture more generally. Although Conrad did not visit the country until a year before his death, his fiction served as both foil and mirror to America's conception of itself and its place in the world. Mallios rewrites modern American literary and cultural history through Conrad's estranging prism. In so doing, he avails himself of a wide range of sources that are meant to reveal the historical and political factors that made Conrad's work valuable to a range of prominent figures--including Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Richard Wright, Woodrow Wilson, and Theodore and Edith Roosevelt--and explores regional differences in Conrad's reception. He suggests that foreign-authored writing can be as integral a part of United States culture as that of any native. Arguing that an individual writer's apparent (national, gendered, racial, political) identity is not always a good predictor of the diversity of voices and dialogues to which he gives rise, this exercise in transnational comparativism participates in post-Americanist efforts to render American Studies less insular and parochial.”
Richard Niland. Conrad and History. Oxford University Press, 2010.
"This book examines the philosophy of history and the subject of the nation in the literature of Joseph Conrad. It explores the importance of nineteenth-century Polish Romantic philosophy in Conrad's literary development, arguing that the Polish response to Hegelian traditions of historiography in nineteenth-century Europe influenced Conrad's interpretation of history. After investigating Conrad's early career in the context of the philosophy of history, the book analyses Nostromo (1904), The Secret Agent (1907), and Under Western Eyes (1911) in light of Conrad's writing about Poland and his sustained interest in the subject of national identity. Conrad juxtaposes his belief in an inherited Polish national identity, derived from Herder and Rousseau, with a skeptical questioning of modern nationalism in European and Latin American contexts. Nostromo presents the creation of the modern nation state of Sulaco; The Secret Agent explores the subject of 'foreigners' and nationality in England; while Under Western Eyes constitutes a systematic attempt to undermine Russian national identity. Conrad emerges as an author who examines critically the forces of nationalism and national identity that troubled Europe throughout the nineteenth century and in the period before the First World War. This leads to a consideration of Conrad's work during the Great War. In his fiction and newspaper articles during the war, Conrad found a way of dealing with a conflict that made him acutely aware of being sidelined at a turning point in both modern Polish and modern European history. Finally, this book re-evaluates Conrad's late novelsThe Rover (1923) and Suspense (1925), a long-neglected part of his career, investigating Conrad's sustained treatment of French history in his last years alongside his life-long fascination with the cult of Napoleon Bonaparte."
John G. Peters, ed. A Historical Guide to Joseph Conrad. Oxford University Press, 2010.
"Born to Polish parents in what is now known as the Ukraine, Joseph Conrad would become one of the greatest writers in the English language. With works like Lord Jim, The Nigger of the "Narcissus," and Heart of Darkness, he not only solidified his place in the pantheon of great novelists, but also established himself as a keen-eyed chronicler of the social and political themes that animated the contemporary world around him. The original essays assembled here by Peters showcase the abundance of historical material Conrad drew upon to create his varied literary corpus. Essays show how the author mined his early life as a sailor to pen gripping, realistic tales of nautical life while issuing scathing indictments of colonialism and capitalist cupidity in works like Almayer's Folly and Heart of Darkness. His unique sense of himself as an outsider is explored in relation to his pointed political novels that critiqued corruption and terrorism, most notably in Nostromo and The Secret Agent. In addition to his major works, essays consider Conrad's contributions as an innovative modernist and his unique role in the nineteenth-century literary marketplace. Complete with an up-to-date bibliography and illustrated chronology, A Historical Guide to Joseph Conrad provides a resource to the life and work of the major novelist."
J. H. Stape and Ernest W. Sullivan II, eds. Conrad™s Lord Jim: A Transcription of the Manuscript. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010.
"Written in 1899-1900, Lord Jim is one of the key works of literary Modernism. A novel of immense power, it has never been out of print, attracting readers for over a century and variously influencing the development of twentieth-century fiction. This page-by-page transcription of the surviving manuscript and fragmentary typescript offers a privileged glimpse into the writer's workshop, allowing a reader to follow closely the evolution of character, narrative technique, and themes. Accompanying the transcription of the novel (about half of which survives) are supplementary materials that contribute to the story of its history: a new transcription of "Tuan Jim" (the Ur-version of the opening chapters) and the draft version of Conrad's 1917 "Author's Note" to the novel. Conrad's Lord Jim: A Transcription of the Manuscript makes available for the first time material housed in far-flung archives and encourages genetic approaches to a work acclaimed for its polished style, virtuoso effects, and narrative complexity."
