Lord Jim: A Tale (Twentieth Century Classics S.)

by Cedric Watts (Author), Cedric Watts (Author), Robert Hampson (Author), Joseph Conrad (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1989

  $4.65

  An edited version of the classic seafaring novel by Joseph Conrad.

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $3.48

  'To the white men in the waterside business and to the captain of ships he was just Jim - nothing more. He had, of course, another name, but he was anxious that it should not be pronounced.' Lord Jim tells the story of a young, idealistic Englishman - 'as unflinching as a hero in a book' - who is disgraced by a single act of cowardice while serving as an officer on the Patna, a merchant-ship sailing from an Eastern port. His life is blighted: an isolated scandal assumes horrifying proportions. An older man, Marlow, befriends Jim, and helps to establish him in Patusan, a remote Malay settlement. There he achieves a kind of peace, but his courage is put to the test once more. Lord Jim is one of the most profound and rewarding psychological novels in English. Set in the context of social change and colonial expansion in late Victorian England, it embodies in Jim the values and the turmoil of a fading empire. In his introduction and notes to this new edition Jacques Berthoud explores the social and cultural dynamics that inform the novel.

• New

  Paperback
  1993

  $8.11

  Introduction and Notes by Susan Jones, St Hilda's College, Oxford. First published in 1900, Lord Jim established Conrad as one of the great storytellers of the twentieth century. Set in the Malay Archipelago, the novel not only provides a gripping account of maritime adventure and romance, but also an exotic tale of the East. Its themes also challenge the conventions of nineteenth-century adventure fiction, confirming Conrad's place in literature as one of the first 'modernists' of English letters. Lord Jim explores the dilemmas of conscience, of moral isolation, of loyalty and betrayal confronting a sensitive individual whose romantic quest for an honourable ideal are tested to the limit. In this novel, Conrad draws on his background as Polish emigre, as well as his first-hand experience as a seaman, to experiment radically with the presentation of human frailty and doubt in the modern world.