Lord Jim

Publisher Marketing: When this novel first appeared in book form a notion got about that I had been bolted away with. Some reviewers maintained that the work starting as a short story had got beyond the writer's control. One or two discovered internal evidence of the fact, which seemed to amuse them. They pointed out the limitations of the narrative form. They argued that no man could have been expected to talk all that time, and other men to listen so long. It was not, they said, very credible. After thinking it over for something like sixteen years, I am not so sure about that. Men have been known, both in the tropics and in the temperate zone, to sit up half the night 'swapping yarns'. This, however, is but one yarn, yet with interruptions affording some measure of relief; and in regard to the listeners' endurance, the postulate must be accepted that the story was interesting. It is the necessary preliminary assumption. If I hadn't believed that it was interesting I could never have begun to write it. As to the mere physical possibility we all know that some speeches in Parliament have taken nearer six than three hours in delivery; whereas all that part of the book which is Marlow's narrative can be read through aloud, I should say, in less than three hours. Besides-though I have kept strictly all such insignificant details out of the tale-we may presume that there must have been refreshments on that night, a glass of mineral water of some sort to help the narrator on. But, seriously, the truth of the matter is, that my first thought was of a short story, concerned only with the pilgrim ship episode; nothing more. And that was a legitimate conception. After writing a few pages, however, I became for some reason discontented and I laid them aside for a time. I didn't take them out of the drawer till the late Mr. William Blackwood suggested I should give something again to his magazine. It was only then that I perceived that the pilgrim ship episode was a good starting-point for a free and wandering tale; that it was an event, too, which could conceivably colour the whole 'sentiment of existence' in a simple and sensitive character. But all these preliminary moods and stirrings of spirit were rather obscure at the time, and they do not appear clearer to me now after the lapse of so many years. Review Citations: Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/1995 pg. 138 (EAN 9780679405443, Hardcover) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2000 pg. 135 (EAN 9780679405443, Hardcover) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2006 pg. 192 (EAN 9780679405443, Hardcover) Wilson Senior High Core Col 01/01/2007 pg. 737 (EAN 9780679405443, Hardcover) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2010 pg. 121 (EAN 9780679405443, Hardcover) Wilson Senior High Core Col 01/01/2011 pg. 907 (EAN 9780679405443, Hardcover) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2014 pg. 161 (EAN 9780679405443, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  Conrad, Joseph Joseph Conrad was born Jozef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski, on December 3, 1857, in Russian-occupied Poland. His father, who was fighting for Polish independence, wrote a poem asking his son to remain "without land or love" as long as Poland was enslaved. Conrad went to sea at sixteen and and served fifteen years aboard English ships. He became the captain of his own ships, sailing to Asia and Africa. He took up writing at the age of 32. It did not come easy: English was his fourth language after Polish, Russian and French, but he wrote with depth and beauty seldom matched. He was offered knighthood, but declined. He died August 3, 1924.