Victory (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)

by JosephConrad (Author), RobertHampson (Introduction)

• Used

  Paperback
  1995

  $7.07

  Axel Heyst, a dreamer and a restless drifter, believes he can avoid suffering by cutting himself off from others. Then he becomes involved in the operation of a coal company on a remote island in the Malay Archipelago, and when it fails he turns his back on humanity once more. But his life alters when he rescues a young English girl, Lena, from Zangiacomo's Ladies' Orchestra and the evil innkeeper Schomberg, taking her to his island retreat. The affair between Heyst and Lena begins with her release, but the relationship shifts as Lena struggles to save Heyst from detachment and isolation. Featuring arguably the most interesting hero created by Conrad, Victory is both a compelling tale of adventure and a perceptive study of the power of love.

• Used

  Paperback
  1975

  $3.50

• New

  Hardcover
  1998

  $16.90

  3et in the Malay Archipelago, where Conrad spent much of his youth as an officer in the British Merchant Navy, Victory is a sombre yet brilliant study of good and evil in Conrad's mature manner. The characteristic theme of a man reaching out from his apparently total solitude in sympathy for another human being is explored through the story of Axel Heyst's attempt to rescue a girl from the machinations of a brutal gang. Conrad's extraordinary blend of moral profundity, pathos and bitter irony is conjured up in prose which is at once atmospheric and inimitable. The book is published to coincided with the film staring Rufus Sewell Sam Neill, William Defoe and Irene Jacob.