Joseph Conrad's Critical Reception

Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Joseph Conrad's novels and short stories have consistently figured into - and helped to define - the dominant trends in literary criticism. This book is the first to provide a thorough yet accessible overview of Conrad scholarship and criticism spanning the entire history of Conrad studies, from the 1895 publication of his first book, Almayer's Folly, to the present. While tracing the general evolution of the commentary surrounding Conrad's work, John G. Peters's careful analysis also evaluates Conrad's impact on critical trends such as the belles lettres tradition, the New Criticism, psychoanalysis, structuralist and post-structuralist criticism, narratology, postcolonial studies, gender and women's studies, and ecocriticism. The breadth and scope of Peters's study make this text an essential resource for Conrad scholars and students of English literature and literary criticism.

Acknowledgments; Preface; 1. Early Conrad commentary; 2. Beginnings of modern Conrad commentary; 3. Development of modern Conrad commentary; 4. Modern Conrad commentary; 5. Contemporary Conrad commentary; Afterword: future directions for Conrad commentary; Bibliography; Index.

John G. Peters is a Professor of English at the University of North Texas and former president of the Joseph Conrad Society of America. He is author of Conrad and Impressionism (2001) and The Cambridge Introduction to Joseph Conrad (2006). He is editor of Conrad and the Public Eye (2008), A Historical Guide to Joseph Conrad (2010), the Broadview Press edition of Conrad's Under Western Eyes (2010) and Volume 2 of Joseph Conrad: The Contemporary Review (2012).