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| Author | Joseph Conrad |
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Almayer's Folly is Joseph Conrad's first novel, published in 1895 by T. Fisher Unwin. Set in the late 19th century, it centres on the life of the Dutch trader Kaspar Almayer in the Borneo jungle and his relationship to his mixed heritage daughter Nina.
Almayer's Folly is about a poor businessman who dreams of finding a hidden gold mine and becoming very wealthy. He is a white European, married to a native Malayan; they have one daughter named Nina. They live in the village of Sambir, based on Tanjung Redeb in the Berau Regency of the East Kalimantan province, Indonesia. He fails to find the gold mine, and comes home saddened. Previously, he had heard that the British were planning to conquer the Pantai River (based on Berau River), and he had built a large, lavish house near where he resided at the time, in order to welcome the British, with whom he hopes he could trade. However, the conquest never took place, and the house remained unfinished. Some passing Dutch seamen had called the house "Almayer's Folly". Now, Almayer continually goes out for long trips, but eventually he stops doing so and stays home with his hopeless daydreams of riches and splendor. His native wife loathes him for this.
One day, a Malayan prince from Bali, Dain Maroola, comes to see Almayer about trading, and while there he falls in love with Nina. Mrs. Almayer keeps arranging meetings between Nina and Dain. She wants them to marry so her daughter could stay native, because she is highly distrustful of white men and their ways. Dain leaves but vows to return to help Almayer find the gold mine. When he does return, he goes straight to Lakamba, a Malayan Rajah, and tells him that he found the gold mine and that some Dutchmen had captured his ship. The Rajah tells him to kill Almayer before the Dutch arrive because he is not needed to find the gold now. The following morning, an unidentifiable native corpse is found floating in the river, wearing an ankle bracelet very similar to Dain's. Almayer is distraught because Dain is his only chance to find the mine. The corpse is actually that of his slave, who had died when his canoe overturned. Mrs. Almayer suggests that Dain put his anklet and ring on the body.
Mrs. Almayer plans to smuggle Dain away from the Dutch so he will not be arrested. She sneaks Nina away from her father, who is drinking with the Dutch. When Almayer awakes from his drunken stupor, a native slave girl tells him where Nina has gone, and Almayer tracks her to Dain's hiding place. Nina refuses to go back to avoid the slurs of the white society. During all this arguing, the slave girl informs the Dutch of Dain's whereabouts. Almayer said that he could never forgive Nina but would help them escape by taking them to the mouth of the river, where a canoe will take them from the clutches of the Dutch. After they escape, Almayer erases the lover's footprints, and returns to his house. Mrs. Almayer runs away to the Rajah for protection, taking all of Dain's dowry with her. All alone, Almayer breaks all his furniture in his home office, piles it in the centre of the room, and sets fire to it, burning the entire house to the ground along with it. He spends the rest of his days in "[His] Folly", where he smokes opium to forget his daughter. He eventually dies there.
As Conrad's earliest novel, Almayer's Folly is often seen by critics as inferior to the author's later work because of its repetitive and at times awkward language. [1] However, recent critics have paid more attention to Conrad's depiction of Nina as a self-determined female non-European character [2] along with Aissa from Joseph Conrad's second novel, An Outcast of the Islands . [3]
Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad in which the sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgian company in the African interior. The novel is widely regarded as a critique of European colonial rule in Africa, whilst also examining the themes of power dynamics and morality. Although Conrad does not name the river on which most of the narrative takes place, at the time of writing, the Congo Free State—the location of the large and economically important Congo River—was a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II. Marlow is given a text by Kurtz, an ivory trader working on a trading station far up the river, who has "gone native" and is the object of Marlow's expedition.
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language; though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he came to be regarded a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote novels and stories, many in nautical settings, that depict crises of human individuality in the midst of what he saw as an indifferent, inscrutable and amoral world.
Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard is a 1904 novel by Joseph Conrad, set in the fictitious South American republic of "Costaguana". It was originally published serially in monthly instalments of T.P.'s Weekly.
Lord Jim is a novel by Joseph Conrad originally published as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine from October 1899 to November 1900. An early and primary event in the story is the abandonment of a passenger ship in distress by its crew, including a young British seaman named Jim. He is publicly censured for this action and the novel follows his later attempts at coming to terms with himself and his past and seeking redemption and acceptance.
Dead Man's Folly is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in October 1956 and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 5 November of the same year. The US edition retailed at $2.95 and the UK edition at twelve shillings and sixpence (12/6). It features Hercule Poirot and Ariadne Oliver.
The works of Joseph Conrad encompass novels, short stories, nonfiction, and memoirs. Although he was born in Poland and spoke Polish and French fluently from childhood, he wrote in English, which he did not learn until his twenties. Philosopher Wincenty Lutosławski recalled Conrad explaining this, saying "I value our beautiful Polish literature too much to bring into it my clumsy efforts. But for the English my gifts are sufficient and secure my daily bread."
Thomas Fisher Unwin was an English publisher who founded the publishing house of T. Fisher Unwin.
"The Lagoon" is a short story by Joseph Conrad composed in 1896 and first published in The Cornhill Magazine in January 1897. The work was collected in Conrad’s first volume of short stories Tales of Unrest (1898).
T. Fisher Unwin was the London publishing house founded by Thomas Fisher Unwin, husband of British Liberal politician Jane Cobden in 1882.
An Outcast of the Islands is the second novel by Joseph Conrad, published in 1896, inspired by Conrad's experience as mate of a steamer, the Vidar.
The Rescue, A Romance of the Shallows (1920) is one of Joseph Conrad's works contained in what is now sometimes called the Lingard Trilogy, a group of novels based on Conrad's experience as mate on the steamer Vidar. Although it was the last of the three novels to be published, after Almayer's Folly (1895) and An Outcast of the Islands (1896), the events related in the novel precede those. The story follows Captain Tom Lingard, the recurring protagonist of The Lingard Trilogy, who was on his way to help a native friend regain his land when he falls in love with a married woman whose yacht he saves from foundering.
Patusan is a fictional country originating in the novel Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad, published in 1900. It has subsequently appeared in various films and television shows.
Outcast of the Islands is a 1951 British adventure drama film directed by Carol Reed based on Joseph Conrad's 1896 novel An Outcast of the Islands. The film features Trevor Howard, Ralph Richardson, Robert Morley and Wendy Hiller.
Seosamh Mac Grianna was a writer from County Donegal in Ulster, the northern province in Ireland. He was born into a family of poets and storytellers, which included his brothers Séamus Ó Grianna and Seán Bán Mac Grianna, in Rann na Feirste (Ranafast), a village in The Rosses in the west of County Donegal, at a time of linguistic and cultural change. Mac Grianna is the most high-profile modern writer in Ulster Irish.
Berau Regency is the most northern of the seven regencies in East Kalimantan province in Indonesia. The capital is the town of Tanjung Redeb. The regency has an area of 36,962.37 km2 and had a population of 179,079 at the 2010 census and 248,035 at the 2020 census; the official estimate as at mid 2023 was 280,998.
Sea of Poppies (2008) is a novel by Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008. It is the first volume of the Ibis trilogy. In the words of Rajnish Mishra, "the Ibis trilogy is Ghosh's most vehement indictment of the source of imperialism and colonialism." The second volume is River of Smoke.
Almayer's Folly is a 2011 drama film directed by Chantal Akerman and starring Stanislas Merhar, Aurora Marion and Marc Barbé. It is an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's 1895 debut novel Almayer's Folly, and tells the story of a Dutchman searching for pirate treasure in Malaysia. The setting has been relocated to the 1950s. The film was a coproduction between companies in France and Belgium. It received four Magritte Award nominations.
Hanyut (Drifting) is a Malaysian adventure drama film written and directed by U-Wei Haji Saari based upon Joseph Conrad's 1895 novel, Almayer's Folly.
U-Wei Haji Saari is a Malaysian film director. He first gained international attention with The Arsonist, the first Malaysian film to enter the Cannes Film Festival in 1995.
Joseph Conrad was a Polish author who wrote in English after settling in England. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in English, though he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties, and always with a marked Polish accent. Before embarking on writing, he had a career sailing in the French, then the British, merchant marine. Of his 19-year merchant-marine career, about half that time was spent actually at sea.
Almayer's Folly public domain audiobook at LibriVox