After learning of my experiences in Russia (as I wrote about in the last few “Gimbling in the Wabes”), a learned friend of mine recommended the book Peter the Great: His Life and Works (by Robert K. Massie) to me. I’ve already gotten a copy from the library, but this […]
On this day, December 3, in 1857, Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Imperial Russia (modern
Ukraine, then a part of Poland). While he settled in England and wrote in English, he always considered himself a Pole. Heart of Darkness, one of the most famous of his 20 novels (which explores colonialism and the attitudes regarding what constitutes a barbarian versus civilized society) is considered one of the best English novels of the 20th century, as is his novel Lord Jim, which chronicles a crew’s abandonment of its disabled ship. Conrad died in England in 1924 at age 66.