Victory: An Island Tale

by Joseph Conrad

Overview

Victory (also published as Victory: An Island Tale) is a psychological novel by Joseph Conrad first published in 1915, through which Conrad achieved "popular success." The story runs as follows: through a business misadventure, the European Axel Heyst ends up living on an island in what is now Indonesia, with a Chinese assistant Wang. Heyst visits a nearby island when a female band is playing at a hotel owned by Mr. Schomberg. Schomberg attempts to force himself sexually on one of the band members, Alma, later called Lena. She flees with Heyst back to his island and they become lovers. Schomberg seeks revenge by attempting to frame Heyst for the "murder" of a man who had died of natural causes and later by sending three desperadoes (Pedro, Martin Ricardo and Mr. Jones) to Heyst's island with a lie about treasure hidden on the island. The three die (Wang kills one) but Lena dies as well and Heyst is overcome with grief and commits suicide. Victory is a masterpiece of storytelling which nevertheless contains Conrad's trademark moral and philosophiscal angst. It has been adapted into film a number of times.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781545049679
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	03/31/2017
Pages:	452
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.91(d)

About the Author

J. H. Stape is Senior Research Fellow at St Mary's University, Twickenham, London, and has taught at universities in England, Canada, France and the Far East. The author of The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad (2007) and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad (Cambridge University Press, 1996) and The New Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad (Cambridge University Press, 2014), he has edited and co-edited several volumes for The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Joseph Conrad. He has also published on E. M. Forster, William Golding, Thomas Hardy, Frank Harris, Angus Wilson and Virginia Woolf.

Alexandre Fachard, Chargé de cours at the Universités de Lausanne and de Genève, teaches English literature. He has edited Within the Tides (Cambridge University Press, 2012) for The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Joseph Conrad and has written for The Conradian and The Yearbook of Conrad Studies. He has also contributed articles on Sheridan and Swift to The Literary Encyclopedia.

Richard Niland is Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde and has also taught at Richmond International University (London). He is the author of Conrad and History (2010) and the editor of Volume 3, A Personal Record to The Arrow of Gold, of Joseph Conrad: The Contemporary Reviews (Cambridge University Press, 2012). He has written for The Conradian, the Journal of Popular Culture and The Polish Review.

Aaron Zacks is Lecturer in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Texas, Austin.

Date of Birth:

December 3, 1857

Date of Death:

August 3, 1924

Place of Birth:

Berdiczew, Podolia, Russia

Place of Death:

Bishopsbourne, Kent, England

Education:

Tutored in Switzerland. Self-taught in classical literature. Attended maritime school in Marseilles, France

Read an Excerpt

Set in the islands of the Malay Archipelago, Victory tells the story of a disillusioned Swede, Axel Heyst, who rescues Lena, a young English musician, from the clutches of a brutish German hotel owner. Seeking refuge at Heyst’s remote island retreat on Samburan, the couple is soon besieged by three villains dispatched by the enraged hotelier. The arrival on the island paradise of this trio of fiends sets off a terrifying series of events that ultimately ends in catastrophe.
“With Victory, Conrad inaugurated a new style and aesthetic,” writes Peter Lancelot Mallios in his Introduction. “The tremendous literary sophistication to be found in Victory does not result in the exclusion of the popular reader.”
The text of this Modern Library Paperback Classic was set from the first British edition, published by Methuen & Co. in 1915.

Author Biography: Peter Lancelot Mallios is an assistant professor of English and American Studies at the University of Maryland.

Table of Contents

General editors' preface; Chronology; Abbreviations and note on editions; Introduction; Victory: An Island Tale; The texts: an essay; Apparatus; Textual notes; Appendices; Explanatory notes; Glossaries; Map.

Editorial Reviews

I have never started a novel…without rereading Victory. It opens up the possibilities of a novel. It makes it seem worth doing.”

Paris Review Joan Didion

Whatever you do, read Conrad’s latest—Victory. Read it, if you have to pawn your watch to buy it. Conrad has exceeded himself…I am glad that I am alive, if, for no other reason, because of the joy of reading this book.”

1915 Jack London

'While all of the volumes to appear to date in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Joseph Conrad have been a great addition to the scholarly community interested in the works of Conrad, it may be that this edition of Victory is the most valuable book yet produced.' John Peters, English Literature in Transition

From the Publisher

This is the latest of the classic works by Joseph Conrad ably narrated by David Horovitch. This 1915 work, relatively unknown, concerns a drifter named Axel Heyst who runs a coal company on a remote island in the Malay Archipelago and his relationship with an English girl. He saves her from her employer, and then she saves Heyst from himself. There is quite a bit of psychological drama in this work, and Horovitch's performance is a great match for the text. His English accent, resonant and deep timbre, and expressive intonation make this a remarkable listening experience. M.T.F. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

MAY 2024 - AudioFile