Conrad's first novel (1895) is also the first part of his Malayan trilogy. Set in Borneo against an exotic and ruinous background, the novel enacts the final, tragi-comic "anguish of paternity" of the trader Almayer, the colonialist idealist-dreamer and Conrad's first isolated man. As the husband of a Philippino woman and the father of a half-caste daughter, Almayer witnesses his dreams of wealth, conquest and escape being defeated by domestic, social and political schism.
Published in the year following the death of Robert Louis Stevenson, 'Almayer's Folly' is superficially an exotic romance; but, beyond the limits of Romance, Conrad as the critic of colonialism and pioneer of the modernist novel begins to emerge.
The most comprehensive paperback edition available, with introduction, notes, selected criticism, text summary and chronology of Conrad's life and times.
