THE WORLD OF JOSEPH CONRAD
1482The Portuguese navigator Diogo Cão discovers the mouth of a river nearly 3,000 miles long. Europeans initially call it the Zaire, but it later becomes known as the Congo.
1491Christian missionaries first travel to the Congo.
1853Scottish missionary-doctor David Livingstone embarks on his Zambezi expedition, one of the most significant explorations of the Congo.
1857Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski is born in a province in the Russian-occupied Ukraine to Polish parents Ewa (née Bobrowska) and patriot, poet, and translator Apollo Korzeniowski.
1861Apollo is arrested by the Russian authorities for his nationalist activities.
1862Apollo is released, and the family is exiled to Vologda, Russia.
1865Conrad’s mother dies of tuberculosis. Conrad first experiences English literature through his father’s translations of Shakespeare. (His first two languages are Polish and French.)
1869Conrad’s father dies, also of tuberculosis; Conrad is adopted by his maternal uncle, Tadeusz Bobrowski, who lives in Poland. The completion of the Suez Canal effectively links the Mediterranean and Red Seas.
1874Conrad sets off for Marseilles to become a seaman in the French merchant marine; his first voyage is to Martinique on the Mont Blanc.
1878An indebted Conrad attempts suicide by shooting himself in the chest. He subsequently signs on with the British merchant navy. Following Henry Morton Stanley’s exploration of the region, King Leopold II of Belgium claims ownership of the Congo, founding the Comité d‘Etudes du Haut-Congo (later the Associa tion Internationale du Congo); Leopold takes this action pri vately, not on behalf of Belgium.
1881Conrad sails to the Far East on the Palestine, a bark of 425 tons. On this two-year voyage, the Palestine’s cargo of coal catches fire and must be abandoned. Conrad is forced to navigate an open
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).
1883Conrad 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.”
1884Conrad becomes a first mate.
1885The 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.
1886Conrad becomes a British subject and earns his master’s certifi cate from the Board of Trade.
1889Conrad begins writing Almayer’s Folly.
1890Conrad 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.
1894Conrad 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.
1895Joseph Conrad formally adopts his pen name, and his first novel, Almayer’s Folly, is published.
1896Conrad 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.
1897Conrad’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.
1899Heart of Darkness is published, as The Heart of Darkness, in the February, March, and April issues of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine.
1900Conrad’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.
1902Edward Garnett favorably reviews Heart of Darkness upon its ini tial publication in book form in Youth: A Narrative; and Two Other Stories.
1903Conrad 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.
1904Conrad’s novel Nostromo is published.
1906Conrad’s son John is born.
1907Conrad’s novel The Secret Agent is published.
1908Following 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.
1911Conrad publishes the novel Under Western Eyes, following a ner vous breakdown.
1912Conrad’s memoir A Personal Record and ’Twixt Land and Sea, a short-story collection that includes “The Secret Sharer,” are pub lished.
1914Conrad enjoys popular success for the first time as his novel Chance becomes a bestseller. World War I erupts during the Conrads’ visit to Poland.
1915Conrad’s novel Victory is published.
1917Conrad’s novella The Shadow-Line is published.
19211920- Collected editions of Conrad’s works are published by Double day, Page (in America) and Heinemann (in Britain).
1923Conrad undertakes a reading tour in the United States.
1924A rheumatic Conrad refuses an offer of knighthood a few months before he succumbs to a fatal heart attack.
1926Conrad’s volume Last Essays is posthumously published.
1958The Congo forms its first parliamentary government.
1960The Congo wins its independence from Belgium.
1979Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, a movie largely inspired by Heart of Darkness, premieres.