Joseph Conrad is not only one of the great writers of English – and world - literature, but was also a writer who lived a particularly full and interesting life. For the biographer this is a double-edged sword, however, as there are many periods for which documentation can be uncommonly difficult.

Zdzislaw Najder's command of English, French, Polish, and Russian has allowed him greater access to the huge range of Conrad sources than any other biographer, and his Polish background and his own experience as an exile have afforded him a unique affinity for Conrad and his milieu. When this meticulously documented biography first appeared in English in 1983, it won high praise as the best, most complete biography of Conrad.

This new, extensively revised edition presents a wealth of new material from recently-opened former eastern-bloc archives. There is new material on Conrad's father's genealogy and his role in Polish politics; Conrad's service in the French and British merchant marines; his early English reading and correspondence; his experiences in the Congo; the circumstances of writing his memoirs, and much more. In addition, several aspects of Conrad's life and works are more thoroughly analyzed: his problems with the English language; his borrowings from French writers; his attitude toward socialism, his reaction to the reception of his books.

64 b&w and 4 line illus.; 800pp, 978 1 571 13347 2, April 2007, £30.00 / US$49.95
Imprint: Camden House