Typhoon

by Joseph Conrad, Philip Dossick (Editor)

Overview

Many chronicles have been written about life at sea, but few, if any, can compare with Joseph Conrad's masterpiece, Typhoon. It can be found on countless lists of the finest literary works of all time, and is one of his major achievements.

It is the story of one unremarkable steamship captain, pitted against a storm of incredible fury.

Captain Macwhirr has a reputation as a resolute man, who "having just enough imagination to carry him through each successive day, and no more" cannot believe any storm would be a match for his powerful ship.

When the barometer and other clues begin to hint at trouble ahead, he is only moderately concerned and unwilling to change course and lose precious time--a decision that may prove more costly than he could ever have imagined.

Conrad was one of the most psychologically subtle of English novelists, and his century-old portrait of Captain McWhirr in the title story is unforgettable. McWhirr is a strange mixture of meticulousness and stupidity, shyness and guts, small-mindedness and fair play.

By the end of the tale, you still think he's very much a fool and quite incompetent to command a sailing vessel. Yet you can't discount his willpower to do exactly what's needed when the time for action arrives.

This is one of Joseph Conrad's finest novels, and remains as transcendent as ever in this beautifully realized 21st century digital edition; as relevant today as when it was first published more than a century ago.


JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924) was a master prose stylist who brought a distinctly tragic sensibility to his modernist literature. He is known to have influenced D.H. Lawrence, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway T.S. Eliot and Philip Roth. Among his most notable works are Heart Of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Under Western Skies, and Typhoon.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940151422277
Publisher:	Maelstrom Press
Publication date:	06/18/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Joseph Conrad (originally Józef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski) was born in the Ukraine in 1857 and grew up under Tsarist autocracy. His parents, ardent Polish patriots, died when he was a child, following their exile for anti-Russian activities, and he came under the protection of his tradition-conscious uncle, Thaddeus Bobrowski, who watched over him for the next twenty-five years. In 1874 Bobrowski conceded to his nephew's passionate desire to go to sea, and Conrad travelled to Marseilles, where he served in French merchant vessels before joining a British ship in 1878 as an apprentice.

In 1886 he obtained British nationality and his Master's certificate in the British Merchant Service. Eight years later he left the sea to devote himself to writing, publishing his first novel, Almayer's Folly, in 1895. The following year he married Jessie George and eventually settled in Kent, where he produced within fifteen years such modern classics as Youth, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Typhoon, Nostromo, The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes. He continued to write until his death in 1924. Today Conrad is generally regarded as one of the greatest writers of fiction in English -- his third language. He once described himself as being concerned "with the ideal value of things, events and people" in the Preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus he defined his task as "by the power of the written word ... before all, to make you see."

Author biography courtesy of Penguin Group (USA).

Date of Birth:

December 3, 1857

Date of Death:

August 3, 1924

Place of Birth:

Berdiczew, Podolia, Russia

Place of Death:

Bishopsbourne, Kent, England

Education:

Tutored in Switzerland. Self-taught in classical literature. Attended maritime school in Marseilles, France