Conrad, Joseph (1857–1924), English writer. Theodore Józef Konrad Kozhenowski, who later took the name Joseph Conrad, was born on December 3, 1857 in Berdichev, Ukraine. Conrad's childhood was tragic. His father, Apollo Kozhenevski, took an active part in the struggle for Polish independence and in the uprising of 1863. Shortly before the uprising began, he was arrested by the Russian authorities and deported with his family to Vologda, where he died in 1869 (Konrad’s mother died even earlier, in
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Conrad, Joseph (1857–1924), English writer. Theodore Józef Konrad Kozhenowski, who later took the name Joseph Conrad, was born on December 3, 1857 in Berdichev, Ukraine. Conrad's childhood was tragic. His father, Apollo Kozhenevski, took an active part in the struggle for Polish independence and in the uprising of 1863. Shortly before the uprising began, he was arrested by the Russian authorities and deported with his family to Vologda, where he died in 1869 (Konrad’s mother died even earlier, in 1869). Conrad's uncle on his mother's side, Tadeusz Bobrovsky, became the boy's guardian. Hard to endure school discipline, in October 1874 Conrad persuaded his uncle to let him decide on the French merchant fleet.
In four years, he made three trips to the West Indies, thoughtlessly squandering money, smuggling weapons and even trying to shoot himself (he later claimed to have been injured in a duel). In 1878, Conrad switched to an English cargo ship, since Russian citizenship did not allow him to sail on French ships, and for the next 16 years he sailed mainly on English ships, thanks to which he learned the language, and in 1886 even received a captain's certificate.
During the years of sailing to the East, he accumulated impressions of the inhabitants there, which gave material for the first two novels, The Caprice of Olmeyer (1895) and An Outcast of the Islands (1896). The Nigger of the Narcissus (1897) and Tales of Unrest (1898) followed. In 1896, Conrad married Jesse George and settled in Kent, because of ill health, abandoning the sea in favor of literature.
Acclaimed by many critics as Conrad's best novel, Lord Jim (1900) is an analysis of "a heightened consciousness of loss of honor." In 1902, Conrad published the novel Typhoon and a collection of three novels: Youth, Heart of Darkness, and The End of the Tether.
Conrad's next three novels reflected his preoccupation with political issues: Nostromo (1904), the story of a fictional South American state where idealism and cynicism, cruelty and pathos were mixed; The Secret Agent (1907), set in London, analyses the ruthless immorality of pseudo-anarchic mentality; Under Western Eyes (1911) depicts the senseless tyranny of Russian autocracy.
Already at the beginning of his creative career, Conrad’s works were highly appreciated by critics, but the real popularity came to him in 1914, after the release of the novel Chance. The publication of Victory (1915) cemented his reputation. The theme of both novels was the story of the failed rescue of an unhappy girl by a well-meaning man.
During World War I, Conrad wrote almost nothing except the semi-autobiographical novel Shadow-Line, although he began work on The Arrow of Gold in late 1918. He managed to complete the novel The Rescue, about unfulfilled promises and remorse. At the zenith of fame, while working on a grandiose novel about Napoleon’s escape from the Elbe, Conrad died in Bishopsborn, Kent, on August 3, 1924.