Joseph Conrad was born in 1857; his first novel was published in 1895; and he died in 1924. The lapse of time since then constitutes, I suppose, a distance sufficient to see him in a historical perspective. It allows us to ask, without an excessive fear of of having our picture blurred by the closeness of the object, what is Conrad's place in the history of literature.

This issue, as I see it, involves three groups of questions: what were the traditions, intellectual and artistic, which nursed Conrad's creative talent? What was the position of his work within contemporary spiritual and literary trends and movements? And, thirdly, who were his followers and what sort of inheritance has he left to them? Of course, within the scope of a short chapter one can hope only to open a few vistas on the problem, announced boldly in its title.

Luckily for us historians of literature, most writers, including those of the first rank, fit more or less neatly into some general pattern of artistic and intellectual life of their time. Even when ‘exceptional’, ‘outstanding’ and ‘breaking new ground’ they allow themselves to be arranged in groups and sequences. They loyally contribute to the ‘temper of the era’, allowing us to draw dividing lines between periods and to talk about typicality and representativeness. Occasionally, however, we encounter figures so peculiar, so aberrant, that it is virtually impossible to fit them into the general formula of their time. Conrad seems to be a good candidate for the first place among these freaks.

He published his most important books between the years 1897 and 1911.