Conrad's Reading

This book aligns concepts and methods from book history with new literary research on a globally studied writer. An innovative three-part approach, combining close reading the evidence of reading, scrutiny of international book distribution circuits, and of Conrad's many fictional representations of reading, illuminates his childhood, maritime and later shore-based reading. After an overview of the empirical evidence of Conrad's reading, his sparsely documented twenty years reading at sea and in port is reconstructed. An examination the reading practices of his famous narrator Marlow then serves to link Conrad's own maritime and shore-based reading. Conrad's subsequent networked reading, shared with his closest male friends, and with literate multilingual women, is examined within the context of Edwardian reading practices. His fictional representations of reading and material texts are highlighted throughout, including genre trends, periodical reading, reading spaces and their lighting, and the use of reading as therapy. The book should appeal both to Conrad scholars and to historians of reading.

Helen Chambers is an Honorary Associate in English at The Open University, UK. As well as specialist medical qualifications she has a recent (2014) PhD in Literature and has published on Conrad and Ford Madox Ford. Based in France, she is a member of the History of the Book and Reading Research Collaboration (HOBAR) at the Open University and an active contributor and editor for the Reading Experience Database (UKRED).

1. -Introduction.- 2. 'Books are an integral part of one's life: evaluating the evidence of Conrad's reading.- 3. 'Read by chance on the Indian Ocean': reconstructing Conrad's maritime reading.- 4. 'A book, not bemused by the cleverness of the day': Marlow as a reader .- 5. 'A Conrad archipelago replete with islands': Edwardian reading communities.- 6. 'Gifted with tenderness and intelligence': Conrad's reading women.- 7. Conclusion.