Review of A Historical Guide to Joseph Conrad by John G. Peter

Skolik, Joanna

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REVIEW OF 
A HISTORICAL GUIDE TO JOSEPH CONRAD 
BY JOHN G. PETERS, OXFORD: OUP, 2010, PP. 252
Joanna Skolik
This Historical Guide to Joseph Conrad edited by John G. Peters consists of es-
says presenting Conrad in the historical, cultural and social contexts in which he lived 
and wrote. It invites readers to immerse themselves in Conrad’s fascinating world 
and “by the power of the written word, to make [them] hear, to make [them] feel” and 
“to make [them] see” the writer and his works in a particular  historical setting.
Cedric T. Watts in “Joseph Conrad’s life” claims that the reader can appreciate 
Conrad – who was an English writer – only by understanding Conrad as a Pole and 
as a seafarer. Explaining Conrad’s choice of themes, such as loneliness, tragic death 
and self-sacriﬁ ce – and also his exploration of the ideas of loyalty and treachery, as 
well as conﬂ icts between honour, love and the law – Watts points to the writer’s ex-
periences in childhood. He examines Conrad’s decisions and discusses his reasons 
for leaving Poland, travelling to Marseilles and choosing to live the life of a sailor. 
Watts then outlines the problem of Conrad’s duality. He presents the phases of 
Conrad’s literary career, discussing his works and the literary criticism they have 
generated. Commenting on Conrad’s personal life and his writing, he gives an over-
view of the writer’s milieu. Thanks to Watts’ effortless style the reader makes the 
acquaintance of Conrad and his contemporaries from within, as it were, getting to 
know various opinions, attitudes, comments and approaches.
Mark D. Larabee for his part examines Conrad’s experiences connected with mar-
itime tradition as they are reﬂ ected in his letters. Larabee does not concentrate on the 
biographical afﬁ nities between Conrad’s life and his works, but instead presents the 
values which Conrad acquired during his maritime career. He discusses the issues of 
trade, ﬁ delity and craft.
By giving a detailed account of the activities of Britain’s Merchant Service in re-
lation to global seaborne commerce at the turn of the century, Larabee shows that 
trade exerted a certain inﬂ uence on Conrad’s ﬁ ction. He discusses the historical 
routes and the cargoes which were carried at that time, comparing them with those 
described in Conrad’s novels.
Larabee claims that the mariner’s ﬁ delity in Conrad’s writing has four objects: 
tradition, professional competence, shipmates and the ship. Conradian ﬁ delity is con-
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70 Joanna Skolik
nected with the seaman’s craft. Conrad observed the separation of effort from crafts-
manship which resulted from a lowering of the technical requirements for work on 
steamers. Conrad not only noticed afﬁ nities between the technical and moral de-
mands of the craft, but also endeavoured to preserve tradition in the face of historical 
changes.
Larabee argues that Conrad’s observation and experience of human nature during 
his maritime career provided him with material for his books and also taught him the 
importance of precision in writing.
Joyce Piell Wexler in “Joseph Conrad and the Literary Marketplace” describes 
Conrad’s connections with his readers and commercial publishers. She claims that on 
the one hand Conrad endeavoured to maintain his artistic standards, while on the 
other he wanted to widen the readership of his novels. Conrad’s wish to have a broad-
er readership was twofold: it was a ﬁ nancial necessity and also a feeling that it was 
important to reach a larger group of readers than just a small coterie. Wexler dis-
cusses Conrad’s relationship with Edward Garnett – his friend, “ideal reader,” men-
tor, critic and agent – and also his early publishers: T. Fisher Unwin and William 
Blackwood.
She notes that Conrad’s career stabilized in 1899, when James B. Pinker became 
his literary agent and took charge of his ﬁ nances, and argues that Conrad – living on 
advances – was writing under ﬁ nancial pressure. He could not meet his deadlines (as 
in the case of The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes). Nevertheless, Conrad 
achieved success in the literary marketplace. As Wexler remarks: “Thanks to his 
mastery of the literary marketplace, Conrad’s writing career validated the ideals that 
his ﬁ ction embodies: ﬁ delity and solidarity, being true to oneself and true to others” 
(p. 98).
Allan H. Simmons in “Conrad and Politics” outlines the historical and political 
circumstances in which Conrad lived and wrote. He presents Conrad’s Polish herit-
age: his childhood memories of national mourning and the role they played in his life. 
Simmons chronicles the history of nineteenth-century Europe – and in particular its 
revolutionary movements – relating historical events to Poland and thus to Conrad’s 
life and letters. He also discusses British politics at the time when Conrad entered 
British Society, as well as Conrad’s own political sympathies.
Simmons then goes on to give an account of Britain’s foreign policy, colonialism 
and the Boer War, as all these exerted a strong inﬂ uence on Conrad’s ﬁ ction. He ar-
gues that the writer’s experiences in the Congo allowed him to see the reality of co-
lonial excess. Conrad presented his views on “the White Man’s burden” in “An 
Outpost of Progress” and Heart of Darkness.
Simmons discusses Conrad’s major achievements: his political novels – Nostromo, 
The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes – which show the maturity of Conrad’s 
political vision. He then outlines Conrad’s reaction to the First World War and his 
interest in Polish affairs. In 1916 Conrad wrote a memorandum entitled “A Note on 
the Polish Problem.” Simmons concludes by describing the last phase of Conrad’s 
literary career and discussing the criticism generated by Conrad’s political works.
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71Review of A Historical Guide to Joseph Conrad by John G. Peters...
Christopher GoGwilt in his essay claims that Conrad’s works can be seen not only 
as an indispensable guide to colonial history at the turn of the century,  but also as 
a guide to present and future forms of colonialism and imperialism. The most rele-
vant and historically signiﬁ cant context, according to GoGwilt, is the one in which 
Conrad wrote. Although his ﬁ ction is not a historical record of facts, Conrad’s periph-
eral vision of colonialism allows us to see his works as a guide to colonial history. 
GoGwilt illustrates his discussion of this peripheral vision by invoking the remote 
setting of “Sambir” (Almayer’s Folly). He also examines Conrad’s use of English 
from a colonial perspective.
Andrea White in turn presents Joseph Conrad’s works against the background of 
the beginnings of Anglo-American literary modernism. She discusses Conrad’s 
uniqueness on the English literary scene at the turn of the century and suggests that 
what Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski brought to English literature was above all 
novelty. She then goes on to consider the artistic issue of “rendering consciousness” 
and discusses strategies such as the stream of consciousness, the inner monologue 
and free indirect discourse – all of which are employed to narrate and present indi-
vidual points of view – and outlines the narrative strategies used by Conrad, as well 
as other modernists. According to White, the narrator was the focal point of Conrad’s 
experimentation in the ﬁ eld of ﬁ ction. 
White also discusses the modernist treatment of time and space. The ideas of 
Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity inﬂ uenced modernists, who 
experimented with the relativity of time and space in their writing. Conrad’s use of 
time is also modernist: he expresses the conﬂ ict between “private” and “public” time.
White argues that Conrad wanted his readers to be active and to participate in 
constructing meaning. She uses the term “modernist difﬁ culty” in discussing prob-
lems encountered by modernist writers who wanted to “render consciousness” by 
inviting their readers to be active. Modernist writers explained and justiﬁ ed this in-
novation by writing prefaces, essays, explanatory notes and comments on their works 
and in this regard Conrad was no exception. White concludes by saying that Conrad’s 
works should be read in a new way – like the works of Woolf, Joyce and Mansﬁ eld.
John G. Peters in his contribution discusses the most important and inﬂ uential 
critical works that have been written on Conrad. He reviews these in chronological 
order, commenting on Conrad’s literary reputation and the various approaches to his 
life and letters. Peters observes that apart from post-colonial, post-structural and gen-
der studies, there are developments heading in other directions: “Conrad’s works 
have provided seemingly endless materials for comment, whether biographical/his-
torical, psychological, post-structural, post-colonial or otherwise” (p. 11).
Two additional bonuses of this volume are a detailed and up-to-date bibliography 
(appended to the essay by John G. Peters) and an illustrated Conrad chronology.
This Historical Guide is an indispensable tool for students and scholars alike. 
Newcomers are given an introduction to Conrad’s life and work and are also provided 
with historical background information about the period, while scholars are given an 
opportunity to see Conrad’s works from a new perspective – and perhaps to read 
Conrad anew.
Vol VI-II rok 2012.indd   71 2012-01-11   14:22:24


Review of A Historical Guide to Joseph Conrad by John G. Peters

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Review of A Historical Guide to Joseph Conrad by John G. Peters

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