Conrad and Language

Joseph Conrad was, famously, trilingual in Polish, French and English, and was also familiar with German, Russian, Dutch and Malay. He was also a consummate stylist, using words with the precision of a poet in his fiction. The essays in this collection examine his engagement with specific lexical sets and terminology maritime language, the language of terror, and abstract language; issues of linguistic communication speech, hearing, and writing; and his relationship to specific languages his deployment of foreign languages, his decision to write in English, and his reception through translation. The collection closes with an Afterword by renowned Conrad scholar, Laurence Davies.