Showing results by author "Joseph Conrad" in All Categories

Lord Jim is considered by many to be one of the greatest novels published in the 20th century. At its core, Lord Jim is a story of conscience and what can happen if one forgets one's honor and turns one's back on one's fellow man.

A mesmerizing collection of 30 wonderful stories by great classic writers. 1. The Invisible Man by G. K. Chesterton 2. At the Farmhouse by E. F. Benson 3. The Parasite by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 4. The Watcher by the Threshold by John Buchan 5. Query by Seamark 6. The Man of the Night by Edgar Wallace 7. The Earl, the Warder and the Wayward Heiress by J. S. Fletcher 8. Afterward by Edith Wharton 9. The Murderer by Perceval Gibbon 10. The Idiot by Arnold Bennett 11. Oh Liberty by W. Pett Ridge

A collection of strange and often grisly tales by some of the world's greatest writers, ranging from mildly unsettling to hair-raising.

An essential for life. Without it life is impossible. Was it always that way? In this volume of stories, water becomes the landscape and narrative, a character more deadly and perhaps more aware of its power than us mere mortals. We are beguiled by its sight, whether softly breaking waves on a sandy beach or a thunderous storm engulfing the cliff face. But also in other forms; as lakes and lagoons. Water is everywhere, and where there is water is the shadow of menace.

Fifty of the greatest classic horror stories ever written: 1. "The Beast with Five Fingers" by W. F. Harvey 2. "The Well" by W. W. Jacobs 3. "The Nightmare Room" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 4. "The End of a Show" by Barry Pain 5. "Bagnell Terrace" by E. F. Benson 6. "Fingers of a Hand" by H. D. Everett 7. "The Interruption" by W. W. Jacobs 8. "Gavon’s Eve" by E. F. Benson 9. "The Ring of Thoth" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 10. "Moon’s Gibbet" by Egerton Castle 11. "The Mystery of Sasassa Valley" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

An astonishing collection of fifty of the greatest short stories ever written by some of literature's most highly acclaimed writers. 1. "Odour of Chrysanthemums" by D. H. Lawrence; 2. "Miss Harriet" by Guy de Maupassant; 3. "Twenty-six Men and a Girl" by Maxim Gorky; 4. "Hot Potatoes" by Arnold Bennett; 5. "Rats" by M. R. James; 6. "Zodomirsky’s Duel" by Alexandre Dumas; 7. "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin; 8. "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe; 9. "The Encased Man" by Anton Chekhov.

Two colonial officers extol the benefits they are bringing to an African village in the form of "quays and warehouses, and barracks-and billiard-rooms". A French republican who has fathered three idiot sons makes his peace with the Church: only to have an idiot daughter. A woman chooses not to leave her husband...but he leaves her. Such are the ironies of Conrad's earliest short stories.

In Joseph Conrad's classic Heart of Darkness, Marlow is a steamboat captain working on the Congo River for a Belgian trading company. Marlow is asked to retrieve Kurtz, a legendary ivory trader who has lost contact with the home office and may have fallen ill. During the expedition Marlow is struck by the Company's mistreatment of the Congo natives. When Marlow arrives at Kurtz's station, he discovers that Kurtz has set himself up as a sort of god to the natives he had once wanted to civilize.

Joseph Conrad was a native of Poland, yet many critics regard him as one of the greatest English novelists. This is all the more remarkable, since he did not learn to speak English fluently until he was in his 20s. He became a naturalized British citizen in 1886. He wrote many books and stories, but the two that remain most popluar are Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim. Lord Jim is both an adventure story and a story of tragedy and repentence.

Before its 1902 publication, "Heart of Darkness" appeared as a three part series (1899) in "Blackwood's Magazine". It was classified by the Modern Library website editors as one of the "100 best novels" and part of the Western canon. The story centers on Charles Marlow, who narrates most of the book. He is an Englishman who takes a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a river boat captain in Africa.

Secret agent Mr. Adolph Verloc operates from a seedy Soho shop, where he deals in pornography and espionage. Idle, treacherous, and self-righteous, he makes the life of his wife, Winnie, one of silent misery. When Verloc is assigned to plant a bomb at Greenwich Observatory, his plans go terribly awry, and his family has to deal with the tragic repercussions of his actions. Joseph Conrad's dark satire on English society, while rooted in the Edwardian period, remains strikingly contemporary.

This work set the style for a whole class of literature, a work that the critic Morton Dauwen Zabel calls an example of Conrad's "central theme...the grip of circumstances that enforce self-discovery and its cognate, the discovery of reality and truth...." It is a novel about a man's lifelong efforts to atone for an act of instinctive cowardice.

A rip-roaring tropical island adventure with a dash of philosophy, now a major film starring Simon Callow, Sam Neill and Rufus Sewell. ‘The girl he had come across … that human being so near and still so strange, gave him a greater sense of his own reality than he had ever known in all his...

Lord Jim may have been based in part on true events. Although Conrad never confirmed this assertion, similarities to real life events appear too strong to be dismissed as mere coincidence. The novel is in two main parts: firstly Jim's lapse aboard the Patna and his consequent fall, and secondly, an adventure story about Jim's rise and the tale's denouement amongst the people of Patusan - set in the Indonesian archipelago.

After spending some years wandering about the East and engaging in various adventures, Axel Heyst, a man of independent means who feels little sense of attachment to the world, retreats to a tropical island, where he lives in virtual isolation, accompanied only by his books. Complications arise when, on a rare trip back to civilization, Heyst encounters a young lady musician who is being pursued by the lustful hotel keeper and notorious gossip Schomberg. Before long, Axel Heyst is faced with the realization that the demands of the world on a man who would simply be left alone cannot be so ...

Today, we're likely to react to the title of this novella, on whose 'sincerity of expression' Conrad was willing to stake his artisitic reputation, with visceral disgust. There is a sad irony in this, for Conrad's title originally alluded to a rather complex set of meanings, implying that, by virtue of our human nature, we all carry within the fragile vessel that is our idealised image of ourselves a darker being we find troubling, even despicable, but with whom we must eventually come to terms. Indeed, in the couse of this tale of a traumatic sea voyage from Bombay to London, Conrad suggests ...

Exposing the tense relations between white colonists and African natives, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad explores the history of European colonialism in Africa, which has been known for many reasons as the Dark Continent. The book is framed as a story that is being recounted, focusing on a sailor named Marlow who is employed by an ivory trading company, known simply as the Company.

Although Heart of Darkness was one of the first literary texts to provide a critical view of European imperial activities, it was initially read by critics as anything but controversial. While the book was generally admired, it was typically read either as a condemnation of a certain type of adventurer who could easily take advantage of imperialism’s opportunities, or else as a sentimental novel reinforcing domestic values.

Hlavní hrdina, námořník Charles Marlow líčí svou cestu do Afriky ve službách jisté obchodní Společnosti. Jeho úkolem je převzít kontrolu nad zásilkou slonoviny a především vyhledat a ochránit pana Kurtze, nejschopnějšího zástupce Společnosti, kterého doslova předchází jeho pověst. Marlow slyší ze všech stran o jeho schopnostech, velkém duchu i heroických činech. Když však dorazí k cíli, nachází ho na jednom z nejtemnějších míst na zemi v krajně zbědovaném stavu, otřeseného, zděšeného a na pokraji šílenství.

Explore the complexities of human nature and the thin veneer of civilization as suggested by the title. This podcast delves into narratives that challenge our understanding of morality, power, and the unknown. Each episode presents a new complete audiobook, offering a diverse range of perspectives and experiences from different times and places. With a fresh book featured every week, listeners can gain insight, satisfy their curiosity, or simply escape into the depths of intriguing storytelling. New books are added weekly, ensuring a constant rotation of compelling tales. Check out more shows ...