Heart of Darkness and Selected Short Fic - Joseph Conrad [2]
boat for more than thirteen hours, until finally landing on an island near Sumatra. Conrad will draw on this experience when he writes the story “Youth” (for more, see the Introduction).
1883 Conrad ships as second mate on the Riversdale, then boards the Narcissus at Bombay; he will later translate this experience into the novel The Nigger of the “Narcissus.”
1884 Conrad becomes a first mate.
1885 The Association Internationale du Congo obtains 450 treaties with African tribal chiefs, as well as the recognition of statehood by America, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Portugal, and Russia. The Congo Free State is formed, with Leopold II as its sovereign.
1886 Conrad becomes a British subject and earns his master’s certifi cate from the Board of Trade.
1889 Conrad begins writing Almayer’s Folly.
1890 Conrad embarks on a four-month voyage along the Congo River on a steamboat. During this period he keeps a diary, which he will later use when he writes Heart of Darkness. He returns to Brussels exhausted, ill with malaria, and profoundly disturbed by what he has experienced in the Congo.
1894 Conrad concludes his sea career and begins writing full time. His uncle dies, leaving him £1,600. Conrad begins socializing with a literary circle that includes the critic Edward Garnett, John Galsworthy, Henry James, and Stephen Crane.
1895 Joseph Conrad formally adopts his pen name, and his first novel, Almayer’s Folly, is published.
1896 Conrad settles permanently in England and marries twenty-two year-old Jessie George, with whom he will have two sons. His sec ond novel, An Outcast of the Islands, is published.
1897 Conrad’s novel The Nigger of the “Narcissus” is published.
1898 “Youth” is published in the September issue of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. Tales of Unrest, his first volume of short stories, is published. The Conrad family moves to Pent Farm, near the coast of Kent, England. Conrad’s son Borys is born.
1899 Heart of Darkness is published, as The Heart of Darkness, in the February, March, and April issues of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine.
1900 Conrad’s novel Lord Jim is published.
1901 “Amy Foster” is published in the Illustrated London News, December 14-28. Conrad collaborates with Ford Madox Ford; the result is The Inheritors.
1902 Edward Garnett favorably reviews Heart of Darkness upon its ini tial publication in book form in Youth: A Narrative; and Two Other Stories.
1903 Conrad publishes Typhoon and Other Stories, which includes “Amy Foster.” Romance, his second collaboration with Ford Madox Ford, is published. Roger Casement, a British consul to the Congo Free State, solicits Conrad’s support to expose the atrocities of Leopold’s rule over the Congo.
1904 Conrad’s novel Nostromo is published.
1906 Conrad’s son John is born.
1907 Conrad’s novel The Secret Agent is published.
1908 Following international outcry about the treatment of the Con golese under Leopold’s Congo Free State, Belgium annexes the country, establishing the Belgian Congo. The worst abuses are gradually diminished, but the region remains a resource for Euro pean exploitation, with little provision for the well-being of its people.
1910 “The Secret Sharer” is published, as “The Secret-Sharer,” in the August and September issues of Harper’s Magazine.
1911 Conrad publishes the novel Under Western Eyes, following a ner vous breakdown.
1912 Conrad’s memoir A Personal Record and ’Twixt Land and Sea, a short-story collection that includes “The Secret Sharer,” are pub lished.
1914 Conrad enjoys popular success for the first time as his novel Chance becomes a bestseller. World War I erupts during the Conrads’ visit to Poland.
1915 Conrad’s novel Victory is published.
1917 Conrad’s novella The Shadow-Line is published.
1921 1920- Collected editions of Conrad’s works are published by Double day, Page (in America) and Heinemann (in Britain).
1923 Conrad undertakes a reading tour