The Tale: Short Story

Joseph Conrad

Jun 2014 · Sold by Harper Collins

About this ebook

On patrol in the North Sea, an English naval commander’s ship finds evidence of enemy resupply, possibly by a neutral country. Befogged, the ship motors carefully into a cove on a coast the crew knows well where they encounter just such a neutral ship as the commander and his second have been discussing.

“The Tale,” by Joseph Conrad, is the author’s lament for the death of nineteenth century values, such as honour, lost in the “moral annihilation” brought about by the mechanization of war, and is the only story by the author to be set during the First World War.

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Ratings and reviews

Ben Howard brought me here - not disappointed!

About the author

Polish author Joseph Conrad is considered to be one of the greatest English-language novelists, a remarkable achievement considering English was not his first language. Conrad’s literary works often featured a nautical setting, reflecting the influences of his early career in the Merchant Navy, and his depictions of the struggles of the human spirit in a cold, indifferent world are best exemplified in such seminal works as Heart of Darkness, Lord JimM, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, and Typhoon. Regarded as a forerunner of modernist literature, Conrad’s writing style and characters have influenced such distinguished writers as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William S. Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, and George Orwell, among many others. Many of Conrad’s novels have been adapted for film, most notably Heart of Darkness, which served as the inspiration and foundation for Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now.