Joseph Conrad was born on 3 December 1857 in Terekhove. A Polish-born British novelist, Conrad was born Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in what is now Ukraine, and spent twenty years as a sailor in the French and British merchant marine before settling in England. English was his third language, but he became a master of English prose. His novels and stories, among them Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes, examine colonialism, moral isolation and the nature of civilization. He was a forerunner of modernism, using narrators and shifting time sequences. His portrayal of Africa in Heart of Darkness has been criticized by Chinua Achebe and others.
Before and after
- 5 September 1857Death of Auguste Comte
- 5 September 1857Birth of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
- 15 September 1857Birth of William Howard Taft
- 26 November 1857Birth of Ferdinand de Saussure
- 3 December 1857Birth of Joseph Conrad
- from 1858 to 1947British Raj
- 1858Natural selection
- 1858Rise of Japonisme
- from 11 February 1858 to 16 July 1858Lourdes apparitions
More in Art, literature & culture
- 1830Publication of Book of Mormon
- 1857Rise of Symbolism
- 1890Rise of Art Nouveau
- 28 December 1895The Lumiere brothers hold the first public film screening
- c. 1900sRise of Expressionism
- 1909Rise of Futurism
The era
This moment belongs to the Industrial era (1760 CE to 1914 CE), steam, factories and revolutions. You can also browse everything in the 19th century.