The Portable Conrad

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A collection of Conrad’s most enduring work, edited by Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael GorraA great novelist of the sea, a poet of the tropics, a critic of empire and analyst of globalization, a harbinger of the modern spy novel, an unparalleled observer of the moments in which people are stripped of their illusions-Joseph Conrad is one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. This revised edition of The Portable Conrad features the best known and most enduring of Conrad’s works, including The Secret Agent, Heart of Darkness, and The Nigger of the “Narcissus,” as well as shorter tales like “Amy Forster” and “The Secret Sharer,” a selection of letters, and his observations on the sinking of the Titanic.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. The Portable ConradAcknowledgments
Introduction by Michael Gorra
Joseph Conrad: A Chronology
I. A Calm and a StormThe Secret Sharer: An Episode from the Coast
Preface to The Nigger of the “Narcissus”The Nigger of the “Narcissus”: A Tale of the SeaII. Three StoriesKarain: A Memory
Amy Foster
The Warrior’s Soul
III. Heart of DarknessHeart of Darkness
IV. The Secret AgentAuthor’s Note
The Secret Agent: A Simple TaleV. Essays, Autobiography, and LettersAutocracy and War
Some Reflections on the Loss of the TitanicFROM The Mirror of the Sea, “Initiation”
FROM A Personal RecordLetters
To Marguerite Poradowska, 26 September 1890
To Carol Zagorski, 10 March 1896
To R. B. Cunninghame Graham, 20 December 1897
To Edward Garnett, 29 March 1898
To John Galsworthy, 12 March 1899
To R. B. Cunninghame Graham, 14 October 1899
To William Blackwood, 31 May 1902
To Roger Casement, 21 December 1903
To William Rothenstein, 3 September 1904
To J. B. Pinker, 30 July 1907
To J. B. Pinker, 16? July 1908
To Edward Garnett, 27 May 1912
To John Quinn, January 1917
To John Quinn, 6 February 1918
To Hugh Walpole, 10 February 1922
To C. K. Scott Moncrieff, 17 December 1922
Suggestions for Further Reading

“This is the best one-volume selection of Conrad available. Michael Gorra’s learned and acute introduction puts both Conrad, and Conrad criticism, in essential context.”
-James Wood

Joseph Conrad (originally Józef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski) was born in the Ukraine in 1857 and grew up under Tsarist autocracy. In 1896 he 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.
Michael Gorra is a professor of English at Smith College. His books include The Bells in Their Silence: Travels Through Germany and After Empire: Scott, Naipaul, Rushdie. His book, Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece (2012), was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography. 

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