Joseph Conrad: Betrayal and Identity (Hardcover)

Through attention to incidents of betrayal and self-betrayal in his friends, this book traces the development of Conrad's conception of identity through the three phases of his career: the self in isolation, the self in society and the sexualized self. This book shows how the early fiction of Conrad negotiates the opposed dangers of the self-ideal and the surrender to passion, how the middle fiction test the ideal code psychologically and ideologically and how the late fiction probes sexuality and morbid psychology. It challenges the conventional construction of Conrad's career in terms of achievement and decline.