Joseph Conrad: A Chronology of His Life and Work (1857-1924)

Philip V. Allingham, Contributing Editor, Victorian Web; Faculty of Education, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario

1857 3 Dec., Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski born of Polish aristocratic parents in the Russian occupied Ukraine

1861Conrad's father, poet and translator Count Apollo Korzeniowski, arrested for patriotic conspiracy

1862 Conrad's parents exiled by Russian authorities to Vologda, Siberia

1865 Conrad's mother dies in bleak climate.

1869 Upon the death of Count Apollo Korzeniowski in Krakow, Poland, Conrad is taken under the protection his maternal uncle, the indulgent Tadeusz Bobrowski.

1874 Conrad leaves his native Poland to avoid Russian conscription; in Marseilles he becomes a trainee seaman with the French Merchant Marine.

1876 As a steward on the Sainte-Antoine , Conrad meets Dominic Cervoni, upon whom he based the protagonist of Nostromo.

1877 Conrad involved in Carlist plot, smuggling arms to the Spanish rebels from Marseilles

1878 March: Conrad attempts suicide, shooting himself in the chest, but recovers. As a result, his uncle clears Conrad's gambling debts. April: Conrad, having lost his French mariner's ticket, joins his first British-registered ship, the ‘ Mavis', and transfers afterwards to ‘The Skimmer of the Sea'. He would have become liable for Russian military service had he remained in the French merchant service.

1886 Conrad becomes a naturalized British subject and passes his exam for a British merchant navy Master's certificate, but commands are in short supply.

1887 Conrad involved in accident on ‘The Highland Forest' and is hospitalized in Singapore

1887-8 As the first officer on ‘The Vidar' Conrad visits numerous ports in the Malay archipelago.

1888 Conrad has his only command as master of the ‘Otago'.

1889 Conrad resigns from post on the ‘Otago' to return to London, where he begins writing Almayer's Folly .

1890 Conrad, desperate for command, takes a mate's position on a river steamer for the Societe Anonyme pour le Commerce du Haut-Congo , the experience so vividly reflected in Conrad's Congo Journal and eventually in Heart of Darkness .

1891-3 While officer of the clipper ‘Torrens' Conrad meets John Galsworthy. In England, Conrad meets Jessie George.

1894 Feb.: death of Tadeusz Bobrowski. Oct.: Unwin agrees to publish Almayer's Folly ; in consequence, Conrad meets Unwin's reader, Edward Garnett

1895 Almayer's Folly published by Unwin & Co., London

1896 Outcast of the Islands published. Conrad meets H. G. Wells. 24 March: Conrad marries Jessie George, and begins writing The Rescue .

1897 Conrad publishes The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus'. He becomes acquainted with American novelist Henry James and R. B. Cunninghame Graham, upon whom Conrad will base the character of Gould in Nostromo .

1898 Volume of short stories Tales of Unrest , collection of previously published short stories. Conrad collaborates with Ford Madox Ford (Hueffer) and meets American journalist Stephen Crane. Conrad leases a Kentish farmhouse; his son Borys Conrad is born.

1898-9 Heart of Darkness runs serially in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, which Conrad calls simply “ Maga .”

1899 J. B. Pinker becomes Conrad's literary agent.

1899-1900 Lord Jim runs serially in Maga .

1900 Stephen Crane, a Conrad intimate, dies; Lord Jim appears in volume form.

1901 Conrad collaborates with Ford to publish The Inheritors.

1902 ‘Youth' and Other Stories

1903 ‘Typhoon' and Other Stories and, in collaboration with Ford, Romance published

1904 Jessie Conrad, injuring her knees, is disabled for life. Nostromo published

1906 Conrad meets Arthur Marwood. Second son, John, is born. Conrad publishes biography Mirror of the Sea.

1907 The Conrads move to The Someries, Luton Hoo. Conrad publishes The Secret Agent.

1908 The short story collection A Set of Six published

1909 Ford and Conrad argue over C's contributions to The English Review. The Conrads move to a cottage at Aldington.

1910 Conrad completes Under Western Eyes, but suffers a nervous breakdown, lying in bed talking to the characters in the novel. Once recovered, he and Jessie move to Capel House, Orlestone.

1911 Under Western Eyes published

1912 The biographical A Personal Record and short story collection ‘Twixt Land and Sea published.

1913 Conrad's first great critical and popular success, Chance, published

1914 Conrad's Chance leads to recognition for his other work and has excellent sales in America. Visiting Poland, the Conrads are nearly trapped there when World War One breaks out in August.

1915 Conrad publishes short story collection Within the Tides , containing the potboiler “The Inn of the Two Witches,” published; Victory published

1917 The Shadow Line published. Conrad begins writing notes for a collected edition of his works.

1919 The Arrow of Gold published. The Conrads move to Oswalds, near Canterbury.

1920 The Rescue is completed and published 24 years after Conrad started it.

1921 Conrad visits Corsica to research Suspense . His Notes on Life and Letters published

1923 Visiting America, Conrad is lionized. The Rover is published.

1924 In May, Conrad declines an offered knighthood. On the 3rd of August, Conrad dies of a heart attack. Posthumously, his collaboration with Ford, The Nature of Crime, is published.