The Inheritors: An Extravagant Story

by Joseph Conrad, Ford M Hueffer

Overview

The Inheritors: An Extravagant Story (1901) is a quasi-science fiction novel on which Ford Madox Ford and Joseph Conrad collaborated. It looks at society's mental evolution and what is gained and lost in the process. Written before the first World War, its themes of corruption and the effect of the 20th Century on British aristocracy appeared to predict history. It was first published in London by William Heinemann and later the same year in New York by McClure, Phillips and Company.

In the novel, the metaphor of the "fourth dimension" is used to explain a societal shift from a generation of people who have traditional values of interdependence, being overtaken by a modern generation who believe in expediency, callously using political power to bring down the old order. Its narrator is an aspiring writer who himself makes a similar transition at a personal level only to feel he has lost everything. (wikipedia.org)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781618959256
Publisher:	Bibliotech Press
Publication date:	01/07/2020
Pages:	168
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.39(d)

About the Author

Joseph Conrad (1857 - 1924) was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. He joined the British merchant marine in 1878, and was granted British citizenship in 1886. Though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he was a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote stories and novels, many with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of an impassive, inscrutable universe.

Conrad is considered an early modernist, though his works still contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced numerous authors and many films have been adapted from, or inspired by, his works.

Writing in the heyday of the British Empire, Conrad drew on his native Poland's national experiences and his own experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world-including imperialism and colonialism-and that profoundly explore the human psyche.

Ford Madox Ford (born Ford Hermann Hueffer 1873 - 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals, The English Review and The Transatlantic Review, were instrumental in the development of early 20th-century English literature. Ford is now remembered for his novels The Good Soldier (1915), the Parade's End tetralogy (1924-28) and The Fifth Queen trilogy (1906-08). The Good Soldier is frequently included among the great literature of the 20th century, including the Modern Library 100 Best Novels, The Observer′s "100 Greatest Novels of All Time" and The Guardian′s "1000 novels everyone must read".

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