FROM THE PAGES OF HEART OF DARKNESS AND SELECTED SHORT FICTION
This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak—the sea entering into the life of most men, and the men knowing something or everything about the sea, in the way of amusement, of travel, or of bread-winning. (from “Youth,” page 7)
Only a moment; a moment of strength, of romance, of glamour—of youth! (from “Youth,” page 36)
What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth! ... The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires. (from Heart of Darkness, page 39)
The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.
(from Heart of Darkness, page 51 )
In and out of rivers, streams of death in life, whose banks were rotting into mud, whose waters, thickened into slime, invaded the contorted mangroves, that seemed to writhe at us in the extremity of an impotent despair. Nowhere did we stop long enough to get a particularized impression, but the general sense of vague and oppressive wonder grew upon me. It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares.
(from Heart of Darkness, page 50)
They were dying slowly—it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now,—nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. (from Heart of Darkness, page 53)
It is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence—that which makes its truth, its meaning—its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream—alone.
(from Heart of Darkness, page 65)
I don’t like work—no man does—but I like what is in the work,—the chance to find yourself. Your own reality—for yourself, not for others—what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.
(from Heart of Darkness, page 66)
The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness.
(from Heart of Darkness, page 75)
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Heart of Darkness and “Youth” were originally published in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (in 1899 and 1898, respectively), and together collected in volume form in 1902. “Amy Foster” was first published in 1901 in the Illustrated London News, and “The Secret Sharer” first appeared in Harper’s Magazine in 1910. The present texts derive from Doubleday’s collected editions of Conrad’s works, published in 1920-1921.
Originally published in mass market format in 2003 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction, Note on the Texts, Map, Notes, Biography, Chronology, Inspired By, Comments & Questions, and For Further Reading. This trade paperback edition published in 2008.
Introduction, A Note on the Texts, Footnotes, Endnotes, and For Further Reading
Copyright @ 2003 by A. Michael Matin.
Note on Joseph Conrad, Map of Congo Free State, The World of Joseph Conrad, Inspired by Heart of Darkness, and Comments & Questions Copyright @ 2003 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.
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Heart of Darkness and Selected Short Fiction
ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-123-2 ISBN-10: 1-59308-123-5
eISBN : 978-1-411-43230-7
LC Control Number 2007941531
Produced and published in conjunction with: Fine Creative Media, Inc. 322 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10001
Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher
Printed in the United States of America QM
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JOSEPH CONRAD
Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski was born on December 3, 1857, in a Polish province in the Ukraine to parents ardently opposed to the Russian occupation of eastern Poland. From his father, Apollo, Conrad developed a great love of literature, and he read the works of James Fen imore Cooper, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Sir Walter Scott in Polish and French translations. After he lost his parents to tuberculosis in 1865 and 1869, Conrad was cared for by his uncle Tadeusz Bobrowski until 1874, when he left for Marseilles to launch a career at sea that would span some twenty years. He joined the British merchant marine in 1878, climbing the ranks and passing his captain’s exam in 1886—the same year he became a British subject. Conrad’s many ocean voyages took him all over the world and provided inspiration for his subsequent writing career, but it was his trip up the Congo River on a steamship that left him disenchanted with humanity and that led him to write his seminal work Heart of Darkness (1899). Conrad had begun a decade earlier, at age thirty-one, to compose fiction in English, a language he had not learned until he was a young adult. He published his first novel, Almayer’s Folly, in 1895 under the pen name Joseph Conrad and, encouraged by the literary critic Edward Garnett, then devoted himself to writing. Although he suffered from physical ailments, such as malaria, as well as psychological problems, Conrad nonetheless produced a substantial body of work, including the great novels Lord Jim (1900), Nostromo (1904), The Secret Agent (1907), and Under Western Eyes (1911). He is regarded as one of the premier prose stylists and writers of psychological fiction in the English language. He died of a heart attack on August 3, 1924.
THE WORLD OF JOSEPH CONRAD
1482
The Portuguese navigator Diogo Cão discovers the mouth of a river nearly 3,000 miles long. Europeans initially call it the Zaire, but it later becomes known as the Congo.
1491
Christian missionaries first travel to the Congo.
1853
Scottish missionary-doctor David Livingstone embarks on his Zambezi expedition, one of the most significant explorations of the Congo.
1857
Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski is born in a province in the Russian-occupied Ukraine to Polish parents Ewa (née Bobrowska) and patriot, poet, and translator Apollo Korzeniowski.
1861
Apollo is arrested by the Russian authorities for his nationalist activities.
1862
Apollo is released, and the family is exiled to Vologda, Russia.
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