Almayer's Folly

"Almayer's Folly" was Conrad's first novel, set in a remote Bornean outpost at the end of the last century. Conrad draws on his own experience to present the strains of life at a cultural crossroads. The Dutch trader, Almayer, is stranded in Sambir, 30 miles up a virtually unknown equatorial river. He lives among old and new cultures; his wife is Sulu (Filipino), behind him live his Arab rivals, across the river is the Malay rajah's campong, inland are the primitive Dyak head-hunters, and decisions taken in London and Amsterdam affect every household in the settlement. In its social density and variety the novel prefigures Conrad's later masterpieces "Nostromo" and "The Secret Agent". This is a critical edition of "Almayer's Folly", with an introduction which demonstrates the novel's importance as an exploration of colonialism, and shows that in this early work Conrad had already elaborated the fictional technique and conception of human life than served to make him a key figure in the evolution and achievement of literary modernism.