95-658: Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard is a 1904 novel by Joseph Conrad , set in the fictitious South American republic of "Costaguana". It was originally published serially in monthly instalments of T.P.'s Weekly . In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Nostromo 47th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century . It is frequently regarded as amongst the best of Conrad's long fiction; F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, "I'd rather have written Nostromo than any other novel." Conrad set his novel in
190-577: A monopoly on the creation and distribution of motion pictures. Fox refused to sell out to the monopoly, and sued under the Sherman Antitrust Act , eventually receiving a $ 370,000 settlement, and ending restrictions on the length of films and the prices that could be paid for screenplays. In 1914, reflecting the broader scope of his business, he renamed it the Box Office Attraction Company He entered into
285-449: A "straightforward, devoted, quite competent" companion. Similarly, Jones remarks that, despite whatever difficulties the marriage endured, "there can be no doubt that the relationship sustained Conrad's career as a writer", which might have been much less successful without her. When in 1923 Jessie Conrad published A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House , it came with a preface from Joseph Conrad praising "the conscientious preparation of
380-686: A European-dominated world—including imperialism and colonialism —and that profoundly explore the human psyche . Conrad was born on 3 December 1857 in Berdychiv ( Polish : Berdyczów ), Ukraine , then part of the Russian Empire ; the region had once been part of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland . He was the only child of Apollo Korzeniowski —a writer, translator, political activist, and would-be revolutionary—and his wife Ewa Bobrowska. He
475-553: A Fox film storage facility destroyed over 40,000 reels of negatives and prints, including the best-quality copies of every Fox feature produced prior to 1932; although copies located elsewhere allowed many to survive in some form, over 75% of Fox's feature films from before 1930 are completely lost . In 1919, Fox began a series of silent newsreels , competing with existing series such as Hearst Metrotone News , International Newsreel , and Pathé News . Fox News premiered on October 11, 1919, with subsequent issues released on
570-401: A conscious decision, usually gives rise to... internal tensions, because it tends to make people less sure of themselves, more vulnerable, less certain of their... position and... value... The Polish szlachta and... intelligentsia were social strata in which reputation... was felt... very important... for a feeling of self-worth. Men strove... to find confirmation of their... self-regard... in
665-583: A contract with the Balboa Amusement Producing Company film studio, purchasing all of their films for showing in his New York area theaters and renting the prints to other exhibitors nationwide. He also continued to distribute material from other sources, such as Winsor McCay 's early animated film Gertie the Dinosaur . Later that year, Fox concluded that it was unwise to be so dependent on other companies, so he purchased
760-477: A correct accent), some knowledge of Latin, German and Greek; probably a good knowledge of history, some geography, and probably already an interest in physics. He was well read, particularly in Polish Romantic literature . He belonged to the second generation in his family that had had to earn a living outside the family estates. They were born and reared partly in the milieu of the working intelligentsia ,
855-534: A corruption of the Italian phrase "nostro uomo" or "nostr'uomo", meaning "our man"). Nostromo's real name is Giovanni Battista Fidanza — Fidanza meaning "trust" in archaic Italian. Nostromo is a commanding figure in Sulaco, respected by the wealthy Europeans and seemingly limitless in his abilities to command power among the local population. He is, however, never admitted to become a part of upper-class society, but
950-488: A disappointment in scholarship and integrity. Jessie was an unsophisticated, working-class girl, sixteen years younger than Conrad. To his friends, she was an inexplicable choice of wife, and the subject of some rather disparaging and unkind remarks. (See Lady Ottoline Morrell's opinion of Jessie in Impressions .) However, according to other biographers such as Frederick Karl , Jessie provided what Conrad needed, namely
1045-463: A few weeks before the principal photography was to begin in Almería . Marlon Brando , Paul Scofield , Peter O'Toole , Isabella Rossellini , Christopher Lambert and Dennis Quaid had all been set to star in this adaptation, along with Georges Corraface in the title role. In 1996, a television adaptation Nostromo was produced. It was adapted by John Hale and directed by Alastair Reid for
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#17327830253911140-507: A government grant (" civil list pension") of £100 per annum, awarded on 9 August 1910, somewhat relieved his financial worries, and in time collectors began purchasing his manuscripts . Though his talent was early on recognised by English intellectuals, popular success eluded him until the 1913 publication of Chance , which is often considered one of his weaker novels. Conrad was a reserved man, wary of showing emotion. He scorned sentimentality; his manner of portraying emotion in his books
1235-587: A house surrounded by a magnificent rose garden. Research has confirmed that in Port Louis at the time there was a 17-year-old Alice Shaw, whose father, a shipping agent, owned the only rose garden in town. More is known about Conrad's other, more open flirtation. An old friend, Captain Gabriel Renouf of the French merchant marine, introduced him to the family of his brother-in-law. Renouf's eldest sister
1330-525: A non-English colonial setting freed him from an embarrassing division of loyalty: Almayer's Folly , and later " An Outpost of Progress " (1897, set in a Congo exploited by King Leopold II of Belgium ) and Heart of Darkness (1899, likewise set in the Congo), contain bitter reflections on colonialism . The Malay states came theoretically under the suzerainty of the Dutch government ; Conrad did not write about
1425-611: A passenger. His sole captaincy took place in 1888–89, when he commanded the barque Otago from Sydney to Mauritius . During a brief call in India in 1885–86, 28-year-old Conrad sent five letters to Joseph Spiridion, a Pole eight years his senior whom he had befriended at Cardiff in June 1885, just before sailing for Singapore in the clipper ship Tilkhurst . These letters are Conrad's first preserved texts in English. His English
1520-621: A result, Conrad fell into debt and, in March 1878, he attempted suicide. He survived, and received further financial aid from his uncle, allowing him to resume his normal life. After nearly four years in France and on French ships, Conrad joined the British merchant marine, enlisting in April 1878 (he had most likely started learning English shortly before). For the next fifteen years, he served under
1615-734: A social class that was starting to play an important role in Central and Eastern Europe. He had absorbed enough of the history, culture and literature of his native land to be able eventually to develop a distinctive world view and make unique contributions to the literature of his adoptive Britain. Tensions that originated in his childhood in Poland and increasing in his adulthood abroad contributed to Conrad's greatest literary achievements. Zdzisław Najder , himself an emigrant from Poland, observed: Living away from one's natural environment—family, friends, social group, language—even if it results from
1710-822: A source of lifelong guilt for Conrad. Because of the father's attempts at farming and his political activism, the family moved repeatedly. In May 1861 they moved to Warsaw , where Apollo joined the resistance against the Russian Empire. He was arrested and imprisoned in Pavilion X – the dread Tenth Pavilion – of the Warsaw Citadel . Conrad would write: "[I]n the courtyard of this Citadel—characteristically for our nation—my childhood memories begin." On 9 May 1862 Apollo and his family were exiled to Vologda , 500 kilometres (310 mi) north of Moscow and known for its bad climate. In January 1863 Apollo's sentence
1805-415: A tooth. Conrad's physical afflictions were, if anything, less vexatious than his mental ones. In his letters he often described symptoms of depression; "the evidence", writes Najder, "is so strong that it is nearly impossible to doubt it." In March 1878, at the end of his Marseilles period, 20-year-old Conrad attempted suicide, by shooting himself in the chest with a revolver. According to his uncle, who
1900-718: A trading and transport station in Matadi . In 1903, as British Consul to Boma, Casement was commissioned to investigate abuses in the Congo , and later in Amazonian Peru, and was knighted in 1911 for his advocacy of human rights . Casement later became active in Irish Republicanism after leaving the British consular service. Conrad left Africa at the end of December 1890, arriving in Brussels by late January of
1995-627: Is a fictional nation, its geography as described in the book resembles real-life Colombia . Costaguana has a long history of tyranny, revolution and warfare, but has recently experienced a period of stability under the dictator Ribiera. Charles Gould is a native Costaguanero of English descent who owns an important silver-mining concession near the key port of Sulaco. He is tired of the political instability in Costaguana and its concomitant corruption, and uses his wealth to support Ribiera's government, which he believes will finally bring stability to
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#17327830253912090-507: Is a mystery to Nostromo, which combined with the fact of the missing silver ingots only adds to his paranoia. Eventually a lighthouse is constructed on Great Isabel, threatening Nostromo's ability to recover the treasure in secret. The ever resourceful Nostromo manages to have a close acquaintance, the widower Giorgio Viola, named as its keeper. Nostromo is in love with Giorgio's younger daughter, but ultimately becomes engaged to his elder daughter Linda. One night while attempting to recover more of
2185-529: Is being transported is struck at night in the waters off Sulaco by a transport carrying the invading revolutionary forces under the command of Colonel Sotillo. Nostromo and Decoud manage to save the silver by putting the lighter ashore on Great Isabel. Decoud and the silver are deposited on the deserted island of Great Isabel in the expansive bay off Sulaco, while Nostromo scuttles the lighter and manages to swim back to shore undetected. Back in Sulaco, Nostromo's power and fame continues to grow as he daringly rides over
2280-483: Is considered a literary impressionist by some and an early modernist by others, though his works also contain elements of 19th-century realism . His narrative style and anti-heroic characters, as in Lord Jim , for example, have influenced numerous authors. Many dramatic films have been adapted from and inspired by his works. Numerous writers and critics have commented that his fictional works, written largely in
2375-403: Is generally correct but stiff to the point of artificiality; many fragments suggest that his thoughts ran along the lines of Polish syntax and phraseology . More importantly, the letters show a marked change in views from those implied in his earlier correspondence of 1881–83. He had abandoned "hope for the future" and the conceit of "sailing [ever] toward Poland", and his Panslavic ideas. He
2470-454: Is instead viewed by the rich as their useful tool. He is believed by Charles Gould and his own employers to be incorruptible, and it is for this reason that Nostromo is entrusted with removing the silver from Sulaco to keep it from the revolutionaries. Accompanied by the young journalist Martin Decoud, Nostromo sets off to smuggle the silver out of Sulaco. However, the lighter on which the silver
2565-604: Is the soul of all Poland]". In the autumn of 1866, young Conrad was sent for a year-long retreat for health reasons, to Kyiv and his mother's family estate at Novofastiv [ de ] . In December 1867, Apollo took his son to the Austrian-held part of Poland , which for two years had been enjoying considerable internal freedom and a degree of self-government. After sojourns in Lwów and several smaller localities, on 20 February 1869 they moved to Kraków (until 1596
2660-749: The Pictorial Review and Romance ; mass-circulation dailies like the Daily Mail and the New York Herald ; and illustrated newspapers like The Illustrated London News and the Illustrated Buffalo Express . He also wrote for The Outlook , an imperialist weekly magazine, between 1898 and 1906. Financial success long eluded Conrad, who often requested advances from magazine and book publishers, and loans from acquaintances such as John Galsworthy. Eventually
2755-765: The BBC , Radiotelevisione Italiana , Televisión Española , and WGBH Boston . It starred Claudio Amendola as Nostromo, and Colin Firth as Señor Gould. The novel was translated to Polish for the first time in 1928 by Stanisław Wyrzykowski [ pl ] . It received several other translations to Polish: in 1972 by Jadwiga Korniłowiczowa [ pl ] , in 1981 by Jan Józef Szczepański and in 2023 by Maciej Świerkocki [ pl ] . Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski , Polish: [ˈjuzɛf tɛˈɔdɔr ˈkɔnrat kɔʐɛˈɲɔfskʲi] ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924)
2850-749: The Fox News and Fox Movietone News libraries have largely survived. The earlier series and some parts of its sound successor are now held by the University of South Carolina , with the remaining Fox Movietone News still held by the company. Fox Film briefly experimented with serial films , releasing the 15-episode Bride 13 and the 20-episode Fantômas in 1920. William Fox was unwilling to compromise on production quality in order to make serials profitable, however, and none were produced subsequently. Hundreds of one- and two-reel short films of various types were also produced by Fox. Beginning in 1916,
2945-529: The Indian Ocean , Conrad developed a couple of romantic interests. One of these would be described in his 1910 story "A Smile of Fortune", which contains autobiographical elements (e.g., one of the characters is the same Chief Mate Burns who appears in The Shadow Line ). The narrator, a young captain, flirts ambiguously and surreptitiously with Alice Jacobus, daughter of a local merchant living in
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3040-511: The November 1830 Uprising of Poland-Lithuania against the Russian Empire. Conrad's fiercely patriotic father Apollo belonged to the "Red" political faction, whose goal was to re-establish the pre-partition boundaries of Poland and that also advocated land reform and the abolition of serfdom. Conrad's subsequent refusal to follow in Apollo's footsteps, and his choice of exile over resistance, were
3135-683: The Red Ensign . He worked on a variety of ships as crew member (steward, apprentice, able seaman ) and then as third, second and first mate, until eventually achieving captain's rank. During the 19 years from the time that Conrad had left Kraków , in October 1874, until he signed off the Adowa , in January 1894, he had worked in ships, including long periods in port, for 10 years and almost 8 months. He had spent just over 8 years at sea—9 months of it as
3230-584: The Sunshine Comedy division created two-reel comedy shorts. Many of these, beginning with 1917's Roaring Lions and Wedding Bliss , starring Lloyd Hamilton , were slapstick , intended to compete with Mack Sennett 's popular offerings. Sunshine releases continued until the introduction of sound. Other short film series included Imperial Comedies , Van Bibber Comedies (with Earle Foxe ), O'Henry , Married Life of Helen and Warren , and Fox Varieties . Fox's expansion into Spanish-language films in
3325-723: The Éclair studio facilities in Fort Lee, New Jersey , along with property in Staten Island , and arranged for actors and crew. The company became a film studio , using the name Box Office Attraction Company; its first release was Life's Shop Window . Always more of an entrepreneur than a showman, Fox concentrated on acquiring and building theaters; pictures were secondary. The company's first film studios were set up in Fort Lee where it and many other early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based at
3420-616: The American James Fenimore Cooper and the English Captain Frederick Marryat . A playmate of his adolescence recalled that Conrad spun fantastic yarns, always set at sea, presented so realistically that listeners thought the action was happening before their eyes. In August 1873 Bobrowski sent fifteen-year-old Conrad to Lwów to a cousin who ran a small boarding house for boys orphaned by the 1863 Uprising ; group conversation there
3515-483: The Justice Department's objections. Overextended and close to bankruptcy, Fox was stripped of his empire in 1930 and later ended up in jail on bribery and perjury charges. Fox Film, with more than 500 theatres, was placed in receivership. A bank-mandated reorganization propped the company up for a time, but it soon became apparent that despite its size, Fox could not stand on its own. William Fox resented
3610-680: The Misses Renouf. A couple of days before leaving Port Louis, Conrad asked one of the Renouf brothers for the hand of his 26-year-old sister Eugenie. She was already, however, engaged to marry her pharmacist cousin. After the rebuff, Conrad did not pay a farewell visit but sent a polite letter to Gabriel Renouf, saying he would never return to Mauritius and adding that on the day of the wedding his thoughts would be with them. On 24 March 1896 Conrad married an Englishwoman, Jessie George. The couple had two sons, Borys and John. The elder, Borys, proved
3705-509: The Wednesday and Sunday of each week. Fox News gained an advantage over its more established competitors when President Woodrow Wilson endorsed the newsreel in a letter, in what may have been the first time an American president commented on a film. In subsequent years, Fox News remained one of the major names in the newsreel industry by providing often-exclusive coverage of major international events, including reporting on Pancho Villa ,
3800-576: The airship Roma , the Ku Klux Klan , and a 1922 eruption of Mount Vesuvius . The silent newsreel series continued until 1930. In 1926, a subsidiary, Fox Movietone Corporation, was created, tasked with producing newsreels using Fox's recently acquired sound-on-film technology. The first of these newsreels debuted on January 21, 1927. Four months later, the May 25 release of a sound recording of Charles Lindbergh 's departure on his transatlantic flight
3895-455: The area's British dependencies, which he never visited. He "was apparently intrigued by... struggles aimed at preserving national independence. The prolific and destructive richness of tropical nature and the dreariness of human life within it accorded well with the pessimistic mood of his early works." Almayer's Folly , together with its successor, An Outcast of the Islands (1896), laid
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3990-625: The beginning of the 20th century. That same year, in 1914, Fox Film began making motion pictures in California, and in 1915 decided to build its own permanent studio. The company leased the Los Angeles Edendale studio of the Selig Polyscope Company until its own studio, located at Western Avenue and Sunset Boulevard, was completed in 1916. In 1917, William Fox sent Sol M. Wurtzel to Hollywood to oversee
4085-507: The capital of Poland), likewise in Austrian Poland. A few months later, on 23 May 1869, Apollo Korzeniowski died, leaving Conrad orphaned at the age of eleven. Like Conrad's mother, Apollo had been gravely ill with tuberculosis. The young Conrad was placed in the care of Ewa's brother, Tadeusz Bobrowski . Conrad's poor health and his unsatisfactory schoolwork caused his uncle constant problems and no end of financial outlay. Conrad
4180-524: The chief supporting roles in Conrad's literary career, had—like Unwin's first reader of Almayer's Folly , Wilfrid Hugh Chesson —been impressed by the manuscript, but Garnett had been "uncertain whether the English was good enough for publication." Garnett had shown the novel to his wife, Constance Garnett , later a translator of Russian literature. She had thought Conrad's foreignness a positive merit. While Conrad had only limited personal acquaintance with
4275-614: The company with Twentieth Century Pictures to form 20th Century-Fox in 1935. William Fox entered the film industry in 1904 when he purchased a one-third share of a Brooklyn nickelodeon for $ 1,667. He reinvested his profits from that initial location, expanding to fifteen similar venues in the city, and purchasing prints from the major studios of the time: Biograph , Essanay , Kalem , Lubin , Pathé , Selig , and Vitagraph . After experiencing further success presenting live vaudeville routines along with motion pictures, he expanded into larger venues beginning with his purchase of
4370-535: The company's most prominent stars by the late 1920s. When rival Marcus Loew died in 1927, Fox offered to buy the Loew family's holdings. Loew's Inc. controlled more than 200 theaters, as well as the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio. The Loew family agreed to the sale, and the merger of Fox and Loew's Inc. was announced in 1929; MGM studio bosses Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg were not included in
4465-452: The country after years of misrule and tyranny by self-serving dictators. Instead, Gould's refurbished silver mine and the wealth it has generated inspires a new round of revolutions and self-proclaimed warlords, plunging Costaguana into chaos. Among others, the forces of the revolutionary General Montero invade Sulaco after securing the inland capital. Gould, adamant that his silver mine should not become spoil for his enemies, orders Nostromo,
4560-686: The countryside was owned by the Polish szlachta (nobility), to which Conrad's family belonged as bearers of the Nałęcz coat-of-arms . Polish literature, particularly patriotic literature, was held in high esteem by the area's Polish population. Poland had been divided among Prussia, Austria and Russia in 1795 . The Korzeniowski family had played a significant role in Polish attempts to regain independence. Conrad's paternal grandfather Teodor had served under Prince Józef Poniatowski during Napoleon's Russian campaign and had formed his own cavalry squadron during
4655-535: The deal, and fought back. Using powerful political connections, Mayer called upon the Justice Department 's antitrust unit to delay giving final approval to the merger. William Fox was badly injured in a car crash in the summer of 1929, and by the time he recovered, he had lost most of his fortune in the stock market crash of 1929 , ending any chance of the Fox/Loew's merger being approved, even without
4750-714: The disused Gaiety theater, and continuing with acquisitions throughout New York City and New Jersey, including the Academy of Music . Fox invested further in the film industry by founding the Greater New York Film Rental Company as a film distributor . The major film studios responded by forming the Motion Picture Patents Company in 1908 and the General Film Company in 1910, in an effort to create
4845-574: The establishment for just over a year when in September 1874, for uncertain reasons, his uncle removed him from school in Lwów and took him back to Kraków. On 13 October 1874 Bobrowski sent the sixteen-year-old to Marseilles , France, for Conrad's planned merchant-marine career on French merchant ships, providing him with a monthly stipend of 150 francs. Though Conrad had not completed secondary school, his accomplishments included fluency in French (with
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#17327830253914940-431: The example of Gustave Flaubert , notorious for searching days on end for le mot juste —for the right word to render the "essence of the matter." Najder opined: "[W]riting in a foreign language admits a greater temerity in tackling personally sensitive problems, for it leaves uncommitted the most spontaneous, deeper reaches of the psyche, and allows a greater distance in treating matters we would hardly dare approach in
5035-518: The eyes of others... Such a psychological heritage forms both a spur to ambition and a source of constant stress, especially if [one has been inculcated with] the idea of [one]'s public duty... Some critics have suggested that when Conrad left Poland, he wanted to break once and for all with his Polish past. In refutation of this, Najder quotes from Conrad's 14 August 1883 letter to family friend Stefan Buszczyński, written nine years after Conrad had left Poland: ... I always remember what you said when I
5130-467: The first two decades of the 20th century, seem to have anticipated later world events. Writing near the peak of the British Empire , Conrad drew on the national experiences of his native Poland—during nearly all his life, parceled out among three occupying empires —and on his own experiences in the French and British merchant navies , to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of
5225-460: The following year. He rejoined the British merchant marines, as first mate, in November. When he left London on 25 October 1892 aboard the passenger clipper ship Torrens , one of the passengers was William Henry Jacques, a consumptive Cambridge University graduate who died less than a year later on 19 September 1893. According to Conrad's A Personal Record , Jacques was the first reader of
5320-659: The foundation for Conrad's reputation as a romantic teller of exotic tales—a misunderstanding of his purpose that was to frustrate him for the rest of his career. Almost all of Conrad's writings were first published in newspapers and magazines: influential reviews like The Fortnightly Review and the North American Review ; avant-garde publications like the Savoy , New Review , and The English Review ; popular short-fiction magazines like The Saturday Evening Post and Harper's Magazine ; women's journals like
5415-455: The inspiration for some of Conrad's characters, such as the title character of the 1904 novel Nostromo . Conrad visited Corsica with his wife in 1921, partly in search of connections with his long-dead friend and fellow merchant seaman. In late 1877, Conrad's maritime career was interrupted by the refusal of the Russian consul to provide documents needed for him to continue his service. As
5510-410: The language of our childhood. As a rule it is easier both to swear and to analyze dispassionately in an acquired language." In 1894, aged 36, Conrad reluctantly gave up the sea, partly because of poor health, partly due to unavailability of ships, and partly because he had become so fascinated with writing that he had decided on a literary career. Almayer's Folly , set on the east coast of Borneo ,
5605-440: The man who from the very first page showed a serious, professional approach to his work, presented his start on Almayer's Folly as a casual and non-binding incident... [Y]et he must have felt a pronounced need to write. Every page right from th[e] first one testifies that writing was not something he took up for amusement or to pass time. Just the contrary: it was a serious undertaking, supported by careful, diligent reading of
5700-403: The masters and aimed at shaping his own attitude to art and to reality.... [W]e do not know the sources of his artistic impulses and creative gifts. Conrad's later letters to literary friends show the attention that he devoted to analysis of style, to individual words and expressions, to the emotional tone of phrases, to the atmosphere created by language. In this, Conrad in his own way followed
5795-428: The mountains to summon the army which ultimately saves Sulaco's powerful leaders from the revolutionaries and ushers in the independent state of Sulaco. In the meantime, left alone on the deserted island, Decoud eventually loses his mind. He takes the small lifeboat out to sea and there shoots himself, after first weighing his body down with some of the silver ingots so that he would sink into the sea. His exploits during
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#17327830253915890-415: The orbit of English literature. Most of all, though, he read Polish Romantic poetry . Half a century later he explained that "The Polishness in my works comes from Mickiewicz and Słowacki . My father read [Mickiewicz's] Pan Tadeusz aloud to me and made me read it aloud.... I used to prefer [Mickiewicz's] Konrad Wallenrod [and] Grażyna . Later I preferred Słowacki. You know why Słowacki?... [He
5985-466: The peoples of Maritime Southeast Asia , the region looms large in his early work. According to Najder, Conrad, the exile and wanderer, was aware of a difficulty that he confessed more than once: the lack of a common cultural background with his Anglophone readers meant he could not compete with English-language authors writing about the English-speaking world . At the same time, the choice of
6080-492: The revolution do not bring Nostromo the fame he had hoped for, and he feels slighted and used. Feeling that he has risked his life for nothing, he is consumed by resentment, which leads to his corruption and ultimate destruction, for he has kept secret the true fate of the silver after all others believed it lost at sea. He finds himself becoming a slave of the silver and its secret, even as he slowly recovers it ingot by ingot during nighttime trips to Great Isabel. The fate of Decoud
6175-425: The ship to look at the local mines. Sanderson continued his voyage and seems to have been the first to develop closer ties with Conrad. Later that year, Conrad would visit his relatives in Poland and Ukraine once again. In the autumn of 1889, Conrad began writing his first novel, Almayer's Folly . [T]he son of a writer, praised by his [maternal] uncle [Tadeusz Bobrowski] for the beautiful style of his letters,
6270-404: The silver, Nostromo is shot and killed, mistaken for a trespasser by old Giorgio. Fox Film produced a lavish silent film version in 1926 called The Silver Treasure directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring George O'Brien . It is now a lost film . In 1991, British director David Lean was to film the story of Nostromo, with Steven Spielberg producing it for Warner Bros. , but Lean died
6365-446: The simple food of everyday life, not the... concoction of idle feasts and rare dishes." The couple rented a long series of successive homes, mostly in the English countryside. Conrad, who suffered frequent depressions, made great efforts to change his mood; the most important step was to move into another house. His frequent changes of home were usually signs of a search for psychological regeneration. Between 1910 and 1919 Conrad's home
6460-601: The still-unfinished manuscript of Conrad's Almayer's Folly . Jacques encouraged Conrad to continue writing the novel. Conrad completed his last long-distance voyage as a seaman on 26 July 1893 when the Torrens docked at London and "J. Conrad Korzemowin"—per the certificate of discharge—debarked. When the Torrens had left Adelaide on 13 March 1893, the passengers had included two young Englishmen returning from Australia and New Zealand: 25-year-old lawyer and future novelist John Galsworthy ; and Edward Lancelot Sanderson, who
6555-423: The story until some twenty-five years later when he came across a travelogue in a used-book shop in which the author related how he worked for years aboard a schooner whose master claimed to be that very thief who had stolen the silver. Nostromo is set in the fictional South American country of Costaguana, and more specifically in that country's Occidental Province and its port city of Sulaco. Though Costaguana
6650-399: The studio's West Coast production facilities where a more hospitable and cost-effective climate existed for filmmaking. Between 1915 and 1919, Fox Films earned millions of dollars through films featuring Theda Bara , known as "The Vamp" due to her unique ability to display exoticism. With the introduction of sound technology, Fox moved to acquire the rights to a sound-on-film process. In
6745-522: The studio's new West Coast production facilities, where the climate was more hospitable for filmmaking. On July 23, 1926, Fox Studios bought the patents of the Movietone sound system for recording sound onto film . After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 , William Fox lost control of the company in 1930, during a hostile takeover . Under new president Sidney R. Kent, the new owners merged
6840-534: The town of Sulaco, a port in the western region of the imaginary country Costaguana. In his "Author's Note" to later editions of Nostromo , Joseph Conrad provides a detailed explanation of the inspirational origins of his novel. There he relates how, as a young man of about seventeen, while serving aboard a ship in the Gulf of Mexico , he heard the story of a man who had stolen, single-handedly, "a whole lighter -full of silver". As Conrad goes on to relate, he forgot about
6935-428: The trusted " Capataz de Cargadores " (Head Longshoreman) of Sulaco, to take the mine's most recent load of silver offshore, and arranges for the mine complex to be destroyed by dynamite if the coup leaders try to take it. Nostromo is an Italian expatriate who has risen to his position through his bravery and daring exploits. ("Nostromo" is Italian for " shipmate " or " boatswain ", but the name could also be considered
7030-605: The way he was forced out of his company and portrayed it as an active conspiracy against him in the 1933 book Upton Sinclair Presents William Fox . Under new president Sidney Kent, the new owners began negotiating with the upstart, but powerful independent Twentieth Century Pictures in the early spring of 1935. Twentieth Century had begun in the Samuel Goldwyn Studios in 1932 under founders Joseph Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck . The two companies merged that spring of 1935 and became 20th Century-Fox. The company
7125-647: The weekly Fox Movietone News feature, that ran until 1963. The growing company needed space, and in 1926 Fox acquired 300 acres (1.2 km ) in the open country west of Beverly Hills and built "Movietone City", the best-equipped studio of its time. Because William Fox opted to remain in New York, much of the Hollywood filmmaking at the Fox Film Corporation was instead managed by Fox's movie makers. Janet Gaynor would also become one of
7220-546: The years 1925–26, Fox purchased the rights to the work of Freeman Harrison Owens , the U.S. rights to the Tri-Ergon system invented by three German inventors, and the work of Theodore Case . This resulted in the Movietone sound system later known as "Fox Movietone" developed at the Movietone Studio . Later that year, the company began offering films with a music-and-effects track, and the following year Fox began
7315-595: Was Capel House in Orlestone , Kent, which was rented to him by Lord and Lady Oliver. It was here that he wrote The Rescue , Victory , and The Arrow of Gold . Except for several vacations in France and Italy, a 1914 vacation in his native Poland, and a 1923 visit to the United States, Conrad lived the rest of his life in England. Fox Film The Fox Film Corporation (also known as Fox Studios )
7410-471: Was a Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language and although he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he became a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature . He wrote novels and stories, many in nautical settings that depict crises of human individuality in the midst of what he saw as an indifferent, inscrutable and amoral world. Conrad
7505-428: Was an American independent company that produced motion pictures and was formed in 1915 by the theater "chain" pioneer William Fox . It was the corporate successor to his earlier Greater New York Film Rental Company and Box Office Attraction Company (founded 1913). The company's first film studios were set up in Fort Lee, New Jersey , but in 1917, William Fox sent Sol M. Wurtzel to Hollywood, California to oversee
7600-437: Was christened Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski after his maternal grandfather Józef, his paternal grandfather Teodor, and the heroes (both named "Konrad") of two poems by Adam Mickiewicz , Dziady and Konrad Wallenrod . His family called him "Konrad", rather than "Józef". Though the vast majority of the surrounding area's inhabitants were Ukrainians, and the great majority of Berdychiv's residents were Jewish, almost all
7695-557: Was commuted, and the family was sent to Chernihiv in northeast Ukraine, where conditions were much better. However, on 18 April 1865 Ewa died of tuberculosis . Apollo did his best to teach Conrad at home. The boy's early reading introduced him to the two elements that later dominated his life: in Victor Hugo 's Toilers of the Sea , he encountered the sphere of activity to which he would devote his youth; Shakespeare brought him into
7790-415: Was described by film historian Raymond Fielding as the "first sound news film of consequence". Movietone News was launched as a regular newsreel feature December 3 of that year. Production of the series continued after the merger with Twentieth Century Pictures, until 1963, and continued to serve 20th Century Fox after that, as a source for film industry stock footage. Unlike Fox's early feature films,
7885-574: Was essential that he learn a trade; his uncle thought he could work as a sailor-cum-businessman, who would combine maritime skills with commercial activities. In the autumn of 1871, thirteen-year-old Conrad announced his intention to become a sailor. He later recalled that as a child he had read (apparently in French translation) Leopold McClintock 's book about his 1857–59 expeditions in the Fox , in search of Sir John Franklin 's lost ships Erebus and Terror . Conrad also recalled having read books by
7980-464: Was full of restraint, scepticism and irony. In the words of his uncle Bobrowski , as a young man Conrad was "extremely sensitive, conceited, reserved, and in addition excitable. In short [...] all the defects of the Nałęcz family." Conrad suffered throughout life from ill health, physical and mental. A newspaper review of a Conrad biography suggested that the book could have been subtitled Thirty Years of Debt, Gout, Depression and Angst . In 1891 he
8075-424: Was going to help his father run a boys' preparatory school at Elstree . They were probably the first Englishmen and non-sailors with whom Conrad struck up a friendship and he would remain in touch with both. In one of Galsworthy's first literary attempts, The Doldrums (1895–96), the protagonist—first mate Armand—is modelled after Conrad. At Cape Town, where the Torrens remained from 17 to 19 May, Galsworthy left
8170-500: Was hospitalised for several months, suffering from gout , neuralgic pains in his right arm and recurrent attacks of malaria. He also complained of swollen hands "which made writing difficult". Taking his uncle Tadeusz Bobrowski's advice, he convalesced at a spa in Switzerland. Conrad had a phobia of dentistry , neglecting his teeth until they had to be extracted. In one letter he remarked that every novel he had written had cost him
8265-435: Was in French. The owner's daughter recalled: He stayed with us ten months... Intellectually he was extremely advanced but [he] disliked school routine, which he found tiring and dull; he used to say... he... planned to become a great writer.... He disliked all restrictions. At home, at school, or in the living room he would sprawl unceremoniously. He... suffer[ed] from severe headaches and nervous attacks... Conrad had been at
8360-424: Was leaving [Kraków]: "Remember"—you said—"wherever you may sail, you are sailing towards Poland!" That I have never forgotten, and never will forget! In Marseilles Conrad had an intense social life, often stretching his budget. A trace of these years can be found in the northern Corsica town of Luri , where there is a plaque to a Corsican merchant seaman, Dominique Cervoni, whom Conrad befriended. Cervoni became
8455-582: Was left with a painful sense of the hopelessness of the Polish question and an acceptance of England as a possible refuge. While he often adjusted his statements to accord to some extent with the views of his addressees, the theme of hopelessness concerning the prospects for Polish independence often occurs authentically in his correspondence and works before 1914. The year 1890 marked Conrad's first return to Poland, where he would visit his uncle and other relatives and acquaintances. This visit took place while he
8550-460: Was not a good student; despite tutoring, he excelled only in geography. At that time he likely received only private tutoring, as there is no evidence he attended any school regularly. Since the boy's ill health was clearly of nervous origin, the physicians supposed that fresh air and physical work would harden him; his uncle hoped that well-defined duties and the rigors of work would teach him discipline. Since he showed little inclination to study, it
8645-493: Was published in 1895. Its appearance marked his first use of the pen name "Joseph Conrad"; "Konrad" was, of course, the third of his Polish given names , but his use of it—in the anglicised version, "Conrad"—may also have been an homage to the Polish Romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz 's patriotic narrative poem, Konrad Wallenrod . Edward Garnett , a young publisher's reader and literary critic who would play one of
8740-458: Was purchased by News Corporation in 1985, becoming " 20th Century Fox " without the hyphen, and in 2020 was purchased by The Walt Disney Company and renamed 20th Century Studios. For many years, 20th Century-Fox claimed to have been founded in 1915; for instance, it marked 1945 as its 30th anniversary. However, in recent years it has claimed the 1935 merger as its founding, marking its 75th rather than 95th anniversary in 2010. A 1937 fire in
8835-423: Was summoned by a friend, Conrad had fallen into debt. Bobrowski described his subsequent "study" of his nephew in an extensive letter to Stefan Buszczyński , his own ideological opponent and a friend of Conrad's late father Apollo . To what extent the suicide attempt had been made in earnest likely will never be known, but it is suggestive of a situational depression. In 1888 during a stop-over on Mauritius , in
8930-457: Was the wife of Louis Edward Schmidt, a senior official in the colony; with them lived two other sisters and two brothers. Though the island had been taken over in 1810 by Britain, many of the inhabitants were descendants of the original French colonists, and Conrad's excellent French and perfect manners opened all local salons to him. He became a frequent guest at the Schmidts', where he often met
9025-706: Was waiting to proceed to the Congo Free State , having been hired by Albert Thys , deputy director of the Société Anonyme Belge pour le Commerce du Haut-Congo . Conrad's association with the Belgian company, on the Congo River , would inspire his novella, Heart of Darkness . During this 1890 period in the Congo , Conrad befriended Roger Casement , who was also working for Thys, operating
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