Leading Conradian scholar Daniel Schwarz assembles his work from over the pasttwo decades into one crucial volume providing a long overdue look at an authorwho ... » 

Leading Conradian scholar Daniel Schwarz assembles his work from over the pasttwo decades into one crucial volume providing a long overdue look at an authorwho is finding renewed prominence in the twentyfirst century. Schwarz toucheson virtually all of Joseph Conrads work including his masterworks and thelater neglected fiction.In his introduction Schwarz explores how the study of Conrad has changed andwhy Conrad is such a focus of interest in terms of gender and postcolonial andcultural studies. He also demonstrates how Conrad fits into the readersunderstanding of the modernist tradition. These central themes are carried intothe essays that follow.Exploring such popular works as Heart of Darkness Lord Jim Nostromo and TheSecret Sharer Schwarz addresses issues raised by recent theory discussingthe ways in which contemporary readers indeed even himself have come to readConrad differently. He does so however while still employing essentialConradian themes such as the disjunction between interior and articulatedmotives and the discrepancies between dimly acknowledged needs obsessions andcompulsions and actual behavior.Schwarz also touches on the extent to which Conrads conservative desires for afew simple moral and political ideas were often at odds with his remarkedskepticism. While not ignoring the ways in which Conrad falls short in terms ofcontemporary values Schwarz nonetheless stresses that from their openingparagraphs Conrads works establish a grammar of psychological political andmoral cause and effect.Rereading Conrad sheds new light on an author who has spoken to readers forover a century. Schwarzs essays take account ofrecent developments in theoryand cultural studies including postcolonial feminist gay and ecologicalperspectives and show how reading Conrad has changed in the face of thetheoretical explosion that has occurred over the past two decades. Scholarsteachers and studen «