 First edition cover | |
| Author | Joseph Conrad |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Frame story, Short Stories |
| Publisher | T. Fisher Unwin |
Publication date | 1898 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 297 |
| OCLC | 12160919 |
Tales of Unrest is a collection of five works of short fiction by Polish-British author Joseph Conrad. Four of the five works were previously published as serials in literary journals before appearing in the volume, published in 1898 by T. Fisher Unwin. [1]
All of the works in Tales of Unrest, except "The Return" were published as serials before being collected in 1898. The name of the literary journal and date appears after each title. [2]
“The Idiots” (The Savoy, October 1896)
“An Outpost of Progress” (Cosmopolis, June–July 1897)
“The Lagoon” (The Cornhill Magazine, January 1897)
"Karain" (Blackwood’s Magazine, November 1897)
“The Return” (never appeared as a serial)
When Conrad’s first collection of short fiction appeared in 1898, he was already regarded "a writer of considerable standing and achievement" among critics, though "his popular appeal was limited". [3] [4] Literary critic Albert J. Guerard places The Tales of Unrest among Conrad’s outstanding works produced between 1897 and 1907, and "the most astounding periods of creative energy in the career of any novelist". [5]
“Tales of Unrest is inchoate yet typical Conrad—inchoate in the sense that it is marked by daring, diffuseness, energy, uncertainty, and all the other signs of the apprentice hand; yet typical in that all of the stories are based on memory and reminiscence, made of situations of murder and mayhem to examine problems of conduct, and are enlivened by Conrad’s theatrical sense of history".—Literary critic Laurence Graver in Conrad’s Short Fiction (1969) [6]
Of the five stories that compose Tales of Unrest, four are concerned with destructive illusions, in which the protagonists suffer "the crippling nature of moral blindness". [7] Literary critic Laurence Graver notes that while the word "return" appears at key moments in the stories, "no return, physical or metaphorical, is possible". [8]
Tales of Unrest public domain audiobook at LibriVox 
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 short 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.
The Nigger of the "Narcissus": A Tale of the Forecastle, first published in the United States as The Children of the Sea, is an 1897 novella by Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad. The central character is an Afro-Caribbean man who is ill at sea while aboard the trading ship Narcissus heading towards London. Due to sensitivity over the word nigger in the title, it was renamed The Children of the Sea: A Tale of the Forecastle. for the 1897 US edition.
"The Secret Sharer" is a short story by Polish-British author Joseph Conrad, originally written in 1909 and first published in two parts in the August and September 1910 editions of Harper's Magazine. It was later included in the short story collection Twixt Land and Sea (1912).
"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).
“Youth” is an autobiographical work of short fiction by Joseph Conrad first published in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1898, and collected in the eponymous collection Youth, A Narrative; and Two Other Stories in 1902.
"An Outpost of Progress" is a short story written in July 1896 by Joseph Conrad, drawing on his own experience in Belgian Congo. It was published in the magazine Cosmopolis in 1897 and was later collected in Tales of Unrest in 1898.
Albert Joseph Guerard (1914–2000) was an American critic, novelist, and professor. He was born in Houston, Texas, and educated at Stanford University,, and Harvard University,.
"The Idiots" is a short story by Joseph Conrad, his first to be published. It first appeared in The Savoy in 1896. The story was included in the Conrad collection Tales of Unrest, published in 1898.
“The Return” is a work of short fiction by Joseph Conrad, first published in the collection Tales of Unrest published in 1898 by T. Fisher Unwin.
Youth, a Narrative; and Two Other Stories is a collection of three works of short fiction, originally serialized in Blackwood’s Magazine. The volume was published in 1902 by William Blackwood and Sons.
“The Black Mate” is a work of short fiction by Joseph Conrad which first appeared in London Magazine in 1908, and was collected in Tales of Hearsay, published by T. Fisher Unwin in 1925.
‘Twixt Land and Sea is a collection of three works of short fiction by Joseph Conrad published in 1912 by J. M. Dent publishers.
"Falk: A Reminiscence" is a work of short fiction by Joseph Conrad. The story was completed in May 1901 and was collected in Typhoon and Other Stories in 1903, published by William Heinemann and Company.
“The Tale” is a work of short fiction by Joseph Conrad, first published in the Strand Magazine in October 1917. The story was collected in Tales of Hearsay in 1925 by T. Fisher Unwin.
A Set of Six is a collection of six works of short fiction by Joseph Conrad, each appearing in literary journals between 1906 and 1908. The works were collected in A Set of Six in 1908 published by Methuen and Company.
"The Duel" is a work of short fiction by Joseph Conrad, first published in The Pall Mall Magazine in January–May, 1908. The story was collected in A Set of Six (1908) released by Methuen Publishing. It was adapted as the 1977 film The Duellists, directed by Ridley Scott.
Typhoon and Other Stories is a collection of short fiction by Joseph Conrad published in 1903 by William Heinemann and Company.
"The Inn of the Two Witches" is a work of short fiction by Joseph Conrad, first published in The Pall Mall Magazine in March 1913. The story was collected in Within the Tides (1915) published by J. M. Dent and Sons.
“Because of the Dollars” is a work of short fiction by Joseph Conrad, first published in the The Metropolitan Magazine in September 1914. The story was collected in Within the Tides (1915) published by J. M. Dent and Sons.