''A Personal Record'' is an
autobiographical work (or "fragment of biography") by
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in t ...
, published in 1912.
It has also been published under the titles ''A Personal Record: Some Reminiscences'' and ''Some Reminiscences''.
Notoriously unreliable and digressive in structure, it is nonetheless the principal contemporary source for information about the author's life. It tells about his schooling in
Russian Poland
Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...
, his sailing in
Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
, the influence of his uncle
Tadeusz Bobrowski
Tadeusz Bobrowski (1829–1894) was a Polish landowner living in Ukraine, best known outside Poland as the guardian and mentor of his nephew Józef Konrad Korzeniowski, who would later become the well-known English-language novelist Joseph Conrad.
...
, and the writing of ''
Almayer's Folly
''Almayer's Folly'' is Joseph Conrad's first novel, published in 1895 by T. Fisher Unwin. Set in the late 19th century, it centres on the life of the Dutch trader Kaspar Almayer in the Borneo jungle and his relationship to his mixed heritage da ...
''.
It provides a glimpse of how Conrad wished to be seen by his British public, as well as being an atmospheric work of art.
The "Familiar Preface" Conrad wrote for it includes the often quoted lines:
"Those who read me know my conviction that the world, the temporal world, rests on a few very simple ideas; so simple that they must be as old as the hills. It rests notably, among others, on the idea of Fidelity."
Conrad wrote a new 'Author's Note' to A Personal Record for the Doubleday collected edition of his works (published in 1920) in which he discussed his friendship with the British colonial official and writer
Hugh Clifford
Sir Hugh Charles Clifford, (5 March 1866 – 18 December 1941) was a British colonial administrator.
Early life
Clifford was born in Roehampton, London, the sixth of the eight children of Major-General Sir Henry Hugh Clifford and his wife Jos ...
.
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Personal Record, A
1912 non-fiction books
Books by Joseph Conrad
Literary autobiographies
Harper & Brothers books