Editing Joseph Conrad (section)

===Writer===
[[File:Joseph Conrad 1916.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.1|Conrad in 1916 (photo by [[Alvin Langdon Coburn]])]]
In the autumn of 1889, Conrad began writing his first novel, ''[[Almayer's Folly]]''.{{sfnp|Najder|2007|p=134}}

{{blockquote|[T]he son of a writer, praised by his [maternal] uncle [Tadeusz Bobrowski] for the beautiful style of his letters, 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 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.{{sfnp|Najder|2007|p=135}} }}

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 the example of [[Gustave Flaubert]], notorious for searching days on end for ''[[mot juste|le mot juste]]''—for the right word to render the "essence of the matter." [[Zdzisław Najder|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 the language of our childhood.  As a rule it is easier both to swear and to analyze dispassionately in an acquired language."{{sfnp|Najder|2007|pp=136–37}}

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]], 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 name]]s, but his use of it—in the anglicised version, "Conrad"—may also have been an [[Homage (arts)|homage]] to the Polish [[Romanticism in Poland|Romantic]] poet [[Adam Mickiewicz]]'s patriotic narrative poem, ''[[Konrad Wallenrod]]''.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Echoes from Konrad Wallenrod in ''Almayer's Folly'' and ''A Personal Record''|journal=Nineteenth-Century Literature|jstor=2902971|author=Jean M. Szczypien|year=1998|volume=53|issue=1|pages=91–110|doi=10.2307/2902971}}</ref>

[[Edward Garnett]], a young publisher's reader and literary critic who would play one of 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.{{sfnp|Najder|2007|p=197}}

While Conrad had only limited personal acquaintance with 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 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 Free State|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 [[Government of the Netherlands|Dutch government]]; Conrad did not write about 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."{{sfnp|Najder|2007|pp=118–20}}{{NoteTag|A comprehensive account of Conrad's Malay fiction is given by [[Robert Gavin Hampson|Robert Hampson]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hampson|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Gavin Hampson|title=Cross-Cultural Encounters in Joseph Conrad's Malay Fiction|year=2000|publisher=Palgrave}}</ref>}}

''Almayer's Folly'', together with its successor, ''[[An Outcast of the Islands]]'' (1896), laid 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.{{NoteTag|After ''[[The Mirror of the Sea]]'' was published on 4 October 1906 to good, sometimes enthusiastic reviews by critics and fellow writers, Conrad wrote his French translator:  "The critics have been vigorously swinging the [[censer]] to me.... Behind the concert of flattery, I can hear something like a whisper: 'Keep to the open sea!  Don't land!' They want to banish me to the middle of the ocean."{{sfnp|Najder|2007|p=371}}}}

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 ''[[The Savoy (periodical)|Savoy]]'', ''New Review'', and ''[[The English Review]]''; popular short-fiction magazines like ''[[The Saturday Evening Post]]'' and ''[[Harper's Magazine]]''; women's journals like 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''.{{sfnp|Karl|1979|p=341}} He also wrote for ''[[The Outlook (British magazine)|The Outlook]]'', an imperialist weekly magazine, between 1898 and 1906.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Imperialism Tempered by Expediency: Conrad and ''The Outlook'' |first=Scott A. |last=Cohen |journal=Conradiana |volume=41 |issue=1 |date=Spring 2009 |pages=48–66 |doi=10.1353/cnd.0.0030|s2cid=161661633 }}</ref>{{NoteTag|Serialization in periodicals, of installments often written from issue to issue, was standard practice for 19th- and early-20th-century novelists. It was done, for example, by [[Charles Dickens]] in England, and by [[Bolesław Prus]] in Poland.}}

Financial success long eluded Conrad, who often requested advances from magazine and book publishers, and loans from acquaintances such as John Galsworthy.{{sfnp|Najder|2007|p=349–59 ''et passim''}}{{NoteTag|[[Zdzisław Najder|Najder]] argued that "three factors, national, personal, and social, converge[d] to exacerbate his financial difficulties: the traditional Polish impulse to cut a dash even if it means going into debt; the personal inability to economize; and the silent pressure to imitate the lifestyle of the [British] wealthy middle class to avoid being branded... a denizen of the abyss of poverty..."{{sfnp|Najder|2007|p=358}}}} Eventually a government grant ("[[civil list]] pension") of £100 per annum, awarded on 9 August 1910, somewhat relieved his financial worries,{{sfnp|Najder|2007|p=420}}{{NoteTag|Conrad renounced the grant in a 2 June 1917 letter to the Paymaster General.{{sfnp|Najder|2007|p=495}}}} and in time collectors began purchasing his [[manuscript]]s. Though his talent was early on recognised by English intellectuals, popular success eluded him until the 1913 publication of ''[[Chance (Conrad novel)|Chance]]'', which is often considered one of his weaker novels.{{sfnp|Najder|1969|p=174}}