Joseph Conrad, original name Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, was an English novelist and short-story writer of Polish descent, whose works include the novels Lord Jim, Nostromo, The Secret Agent, and the short story Heart of Darkness. During his lifetime Conrad was admired for the richness of his prose and his renderings of dangerous life at sea and in exotic places. Whether due to his multi-linguistic capacity and his late coming to the English language, or to the international nature of his early life and experience, Conrad's most distinctive and striking feature is his writing style. Any newcomer to Conrad will be immediately struck by his winding, indirect, tautological, and sometimes frustratingly ambiguous narrative structure. The Tale was written in 1916 and first published 1917 in The Strand Magazine. It was posthumously collected in Tales of Hearsay, published by T. Fisher Unwin in 1925. In The Tale, the commanding officer is at war not only with the enemy submarine or the mysterious cargo ship but also with himself, with his frailty as a creature fog-bound by intellectual limitations. Although in command of his ship, he is full of doubts and prejudices, capable even of mean-spiritedness. When he sends the Northman to destruction on the rocks, he is guilty of a cleverness verging on the diabolic… You can listen online to free English audiobook “The Tale” by Joseph Conrad on our website. Enjoy it!
