The author of thirty-one books and numerous stories, Conrad is noted for his complex narratives and formal experiments, especially in terms of point of view and temporal shifts. He is also much studied for his depiction of imperialism and colonialism, in the Malay Archipelago in Almayer’s Folly (1895), An Outcast of the Islands (1896) and others, in the Belgian Congo in Heart of Darkness (1899), and in South America in Nostromo (1904). His political novels The Secret Agent (1907), which revolves around a plot to bomb Greenwich Observatory, and Under Western Eyes (1911), which focuses on spies and revolutionaries in Russia and Switzerland, are also much studied, as is the first long novel of

This article in full comprises 2384 words but only the first 150 or so words are available to non-members.

All our articles have been written recently by experts in their field, more than 95% of them university professors. To read about membership, please click here.

First published 02 April 2001

Citation: Childs, Peter. "Joseph Conrad". The Literary Encyclopedia. 2 April 2001.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=989, accessed 20 November 2009.]