Joseph Conrad

A Personal Record, by Joseph Conrad (Essays)

A Personal Record is an autobiographical work (or "fragment of biography") by Joseph Conrad, published in 1912. It has also been published under the titles A Personal Record: Some Reminiscences and Some Reminiscences. Notoriously unreliable and digressive in structure, it is nonetheless the principal contemporary source for information about the author's life.[citation needed] It tells about his schooling in Russian Poland, his sailing in Marseille, the influence of his Uncle Tadeusz, and the writing of Almayer's Folly. It provides a glimpse of how Conrad wished to be seen by his British public, as well as being an atmospheric work of art. The "Familiar Preface" Conrad wrote for it includes the often quoted lines: "Those who read me know my conviction that the world, the temporal world, rests on a few very simple ideas; so simple that they must be as old as the hills. It rests notably, among others, on the idea of Fidelity." Conrad wrote a new 'Author's Note' to A Personal Record for the Doubleday collected edition of his works (published in 1920) in which he discussed his friendship with the British colonial official and writer Hugh Clifford. Joseph Conrad (Polish pronunciation: born Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski; 3 December 1857 - 3 August 1924) was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. He joined the British merchant marine in 1878, and was granted British nationality in 1886. Though he did not speak English fluently until he was in his twenties, he was a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote stories and novels, many with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of an impassive, inscrutable universe. Conrad is considered an early modernist, though his works still contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced many authors, including T. S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Graham Greene, and Salman Rushdie. Many films have been adapted from, or inspired by, Conrad's works. Writing in the heyday of the British Empire, Conrad drew on, among other things, his native Poland's national experiences, and his personal experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world - including imperialism and colonialism - while profoundly exploring human psychology.