R. Hampson

Conrad's Secrets

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Conrad's Secrets explores a range of knowledges which would have been familiar to Conrad and his original readers. Drawing on research into trade, policing, sexual and financial scandals, changing theories of trauma and contemporary war-crimes, the book provides contexts for Conrad's fictions and produces original readings of his work.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan / Palgrave Macmillan UK / Springer Palgrave Macmillan
• Artikelnr. des Verlages: 978-1-349-35370-5
• 1st ed. 2012
• Seitenzahl: 312
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Januar 2012
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 216mm x 140mm x 17mm
• Gewicht: 395g
• ISBN-13: 9781349353705
• ISBN-10: 1349353701
• Artikelnr.: 45068832

Autorenporträt

ROBERT HAMPSON is professor of Modern Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. He is the author of Joseph Conrad: Betrayal and Identity and Cross-Cultural Encounters in Joseph Conrad's Malay Fiction and co-editor (with Andrew Gibson) of Conrad and Theory. He has edited various works by Conrad, Kipling and Rider Haggard.

Inhaltsangabe

Acknowledgements Introduction Covert Plots and Secret Trades: Almayer's Folly, An Outcast of the Islands, The Rescue Trade Secrets: Heart of Darkness, The Inheritors Political Secrets: The Secret Agent City Secrets: Chance Sexual Secrets: Victory Medical Secrets: Lord Jim, The Arrow of Gold, The Rover Naval Secrets: The Tale Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

Rezensionen

'Robert Hampson approaches Conrad's texts with that detailed knowledge of social, political and cultural contexts that the author assumed his readers would have. The result is a book that fills Conrad's novels and shorter fictions with new life even for those present-day readers who are confident that they know them well. Drawing on historical research into such matters as gun-running and slavery, the Belgian exploitation of the Congo, anarchist activity in the later nineteenth century, and the massive frauds and swindles associated with 'criminal capitalism' of the same period, successive chapters uncover worlds of hitherto hidden meaning in Conrad's fiction. Familiar words and phrases to which the reader may previously have assigned a general or metaphorical meaning are now perceived as pointers to specific events, states of affairs, or individuals. At the same time, Hampson's skills as a perceptive close reader of Conrad's fiction are in no way overshadowed by the historicist thrust of this work. This is a book that unites the virtues of skilled close reading and thoroughly researched historical contextualization to produce a study that gives us a Conrad whose fictions are more engaged with contemporary realities than we had ever suspected. - Jeremy Hawthorns, Emeritus Professor, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.'