Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)

A selective list of online literary criticism for novelist Joseph Conrad, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in peer and editor reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the MLA guidelines for web sites.

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Literary criticism

Artese, Brian. "Speech Was of No Use": Conrad, a New Journalism, and the Critical Abjection of Testimony." Novel: A Forum on Fiction, Spring 2003

Berry, Robert. "Gothicism in Conrad and Dostoevsky." How Conrad and Dostoevsky combined disparate fictional genres and traditions in their work, particularly the Gothic tradition. "Though the critical establishment has long since labelled both artists as psychological, even political novelists, Conrad and Dostoevsky are also authors of what is usually called 'popular' fiction. Under this broad, notoriously problematic heading, are included such independent genres as 'adventure, thriller and detective writing'; 'romance' literature; and Gothic fiction.' Each of these literary forms, I would argue, can be claimed to exist in Conrad and Dostoevsky's complex fictional worlds." Deep South v.1 n.2 (May, 1995)

Childs, Peter. A substantial introduction to Joseph Conrad, from the Literary Encyclopedia. "Conrad is noted for his complex narratives and formal experiments, especially in terms of point of view and temporal shifts. He is also much studied for his depiction of imperialism and colonialism."

Elbarbary, Samir. "'Heart of Darkness' and late-Victorian fascination with the primitive and the double." Twentieth Century Literature, Spring, 1993

Erdinast-Vulcan, Dahpna. "'Signifying nothing': Conrad's idiots and the anxiety of modernism." Studies in Short Fiction, Spring, 1996

Gorra, Michael. "Joseph Conrad," a lengthy article on central importance of Conrad. The Hudson Review, Wntr 2007

Jones, Susan. "Modernism and the marketplace: the case of Conrad's 'Chance.'" College Literature, 22-JUN-07

Kaplan, Carola M. "Colonizers, Cannibals, and the Horror of Good Intentions in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Studies in Short Fiction, Summer, 1997

Kid, Billy. "Contextualizing and comprehending Joseph Conrad's 'The Return.'" Studies in Short Fiction, Wntr, 1996

Krishnan, Sanjay. "Seeing the Animal: Colonial Space and Movement in Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim." Novel: A Forum on Fiction, Summer 2004

Lackey, Michael. "Moral Conditions for Genocide in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness." College Literature, Wntr 2005

Mencher, Barrie. "Christianity and Criticism: A Reply to Ian Robinson on Conrad's Victory." The New Compass: A Critical Review 3 (June 2004)

Nüstedt, Holger. Joseph Conrad's "'The End of the Tether,'" in EESE 9/1998

Phillips, Gene D. "To sup on horrors: Christopher Hampton's film version of Joseph Conrad's Secret Agent." Literature Film Quarterly, 1999

Robinson, Ian. "Conrad's Belief in Victory." Writes that "Conrad's great achievements, which I am going to call "comic," depend on his retaining Christian judgement along with Christian language-and the latter for the sake of the former." The New Compass: A Critical Review 2 (December 2003)

Scannell, James. "The method is unsound: the aesthetic dissonance of colonial justification in Kipling, Conrad, and Greene" [Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene]. Style, Fall, 1996

Tredell, Nicolas. Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness (Columbia Univ. Press, 2000). Preview at Google Books.

Wheatley, Alison E. "'A World of Their Own': Subversion of gender expectations in Conrad's plays." Papers on Language and Literature, Wntr 2001

Wiesenfarth, Joseph. "Ford's Joseph Conrad: A Personal Remembrance as metafiction: Or, how Conrad became an Elizabethan poet" [and Ford Maddox Ford] Renascence, Fall 2000

Billy, Ted. A review of Ted Billy's A Wilderness of Words: Closure and Disclosure in Conrad's Short Fiction. (1997.) Reviewed by Keith Carabine in The Conradian (moved or removed)

Carabine, Keith, Owen Knowles and Wieslaw Krajka, Eds. A review of Conrad: Eastern and Western Perspectives: Vol. 1. Conrad's Literary Career (1992) and Vol. 2 Contexts for Conrad (1993). Review by Linda Dryden in The Conradian (moved or removed)

Carabine, Keith. A review of The Life and the Art: A Study of Conrad's "Under Western Eyes." (1996). Reviewed by Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan in The Conradian (moved or removed)

Kaye, Peter. A review of Peter Kaye's Dostoyevsky and English Modernism: 1900-1930. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999) Reviewed by Keith Carabine in The Conradian.(moved or removed)

Mitchell, Angus. "New Light On The Heart Of Darkness." A historian writes about Joseph Conrad's tale as a reflection of the ugly side of the European scramble for Africa. "Heart of Darkness was the first novel to attack concepts of Western progress and question dubious social Darwinist attitudes that were used to justify many brutal facets of Empire-building." History Today, Dec. 1999 (removed from findarticles.com)

Saunders, Max. A review of Max Saunders' Ford Madox Ford: A Dual Life, Volume I: The World Before the War and Volume II: The After-War World. (1996). Reviewed by Gene M. Moore in The Conradian (moved or removed)

Conrad and Postcolonialism

Boehmer, Elleke. "The Late Imperial Hero: Lord Jim" in Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors (Oxford Univ. Press, 2005). Preview at Google Books.

George, Rosemary Marangoly. "The Great English Tradition: Joseph Conrad Writes Home" in The Politics of Home: Postcolonial Relocations and Twentieth-century Fiction (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996). Preview at Google Books.

Nixon, Rob. On V.S. Naipaul's use of Joseph Conrad, in London Calling: V.S. Naipaul, Postcolonial Mandarin (Oxford Univ. Press, 1992). Preview at Google Books.

Peters, John G. On Postcolonial and Poststructural commentary on Conrad, in The Cambridge Introduction to Joseph Conrad (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006). Preview at Google Books.

Web Sites

Short (one-paragraph) summaries of recent scholarly books on Joseph Conrad, from the Joseph Conrad Society of North America

Brief reviews of recent scholarly books on Joseph Conrad from the Joseph Conrad Society (UK)

The Joseph Conrad Society (UK) web site offers student resources in the form of recommended secondary reading; scholarly resources, including a downloadable A Descriptive Location Register of Joseph Conrad's Literary Manuscripts; brief reviews recent books on Conrad, and more

The Joseph Conrad Society of North America web site has news about upcoming Conrad events, summaries of recent books on Conrad, recommended links, and more

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