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Joseph Conrad
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Almayer's Folly Paperback – October 5, 1991

by Joseph Conrad (Author)
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 68 ratings
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Set in a jungle village in eastern Borneo during the 1880s, Almayer's Folly recreates the many conflicts - economic, religious, racial, cultural, sexual - of imperial Europe with the colonized East Indies through Joseph Conrad's story of Kaspar Almayer's personal tragedy: his loss of both his daughter of mixed race to her native lover and his dream of finding enough gold to return to Amsterdam in triumph. The introduction gives the history of the composition of Conrad's first book, which was started in London in the autumn of 1889 and completed four and a half years later; the manuscript went with him to the Congo, Australia, the Ukraine, Belgium, Switzerland and France on his travels as a seaman and on holiday. During this long gestation, some of the chapters were typed twice, and later Conrad's slightly foreign English was tidied several times by publishers. The novel has suffered seven layers of unauthorized intervention, as set out in the essay on the text and the apparatus. The notes explain Malay terms and historical references, and there are two regional maps. This is the text of Almayer's Folly, established through modern textual scholarship, as Conrad would have liked it to have appeared in 1895.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    176 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Penguin Classics
  4. Publication date
    October 5, 1991
  5. Dimensions
    5.25 x 0.5 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0140180303
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0140180305
  8. Lexile measure
    1230L
  9. See all details
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About the Author

Joseph Conrad (originally Józef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski) was born in the Ukraine in 1857 and grew up under Tsarist autocracy. His parents, ardent Polish patriots, died when he was a child, following their exile for anti-Russian activities, and he came under the protection of his tradition-conscious uncle, Thaddeus Bobrowski, who watched over him for the next twenty-five years. In 1874 Bobrowski conceded to his nephew's passionate desire to go to sea, and Conrad travelled to Marseilles, where he served in French merchant vessels before joining a British ship in 1878 as an apprentice. In 1886 he obtained British nationality and his Master's certificate in the British Merchant Service. Eight years later he left the sea to devote himself to writing, publishing his first novel, Almayer's Folly, in 1895. The following year he married Jessie George and eventually settled in Kent, where he produced within fifteen years such modern classics as Youth, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Typhoon, Nostromo, The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes. He continued to write until his death in 1924. Today Conrad is generally regarded as one of the greatest writers of fiction in English—his third language. He once described himself as being concerned 'with the ideal value of things, events and people'; in the Preface to The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' he defined his task as 'by the power of the written word ... before all, to make you see'.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Classics (October 5, 1991)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 176 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0140180303
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140180305
  • Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1230L
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.5 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 68 ratings

About the author

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Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad

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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.

Conrad Fischer, M.D., is one of the most experienced educators in medicine today. His breadth of teaching extends from medical students to USMLE prep to Specialty Board exams. In addition, Dr. Fischer is the Associate Chief of Medicine for Educational and Academic Activities at SUNY Downstate School of Medicine, and is an Attending Physician at King's County Hospital in Brooklyn, NY. Dr. Fischer has been Chairman of Medicine for Kaplan Medical since 1999, and has held Residency Program Director positions at both Maimonides Medical Center and Flushing Hospital in New York City.

Sonia Reichert, MD., is the Director of Medical Curriculum for Kaplan Medical.

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
68 global ratings
Great novel on the human condition under colonialism
5 Stars
Great novel on the human condition under colonialism
Alamyer’s Folly is Joseph Conrad’s first novel and what I would consider to be a little known classic. Yet, its relative lack of fame does not take away its power. The greed bred by colonialism and the racism that pervades in it are powerfully shown in the book. Almayer was driven by love of wealth and love for his daughter. However, the love for his daughter was distorted by the superiority he felt as an European and ultimately ends in tragedy. Throughout the book, Conrad masterfully describes the environment under colonialism as well as the psychological states of mind of the colonists and the natives. A great novel through and through.The product quality is superb but the book is not illustrated.
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Top reviews from the United States

Tim
5.0 out of 5 stars Great novel on the human condition under colonialism
Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2019
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Alamyer’s Folly is Joseph Conrad’s first novel and what I would consider to be a little known classic. Yet, its relative lack of fame does not take away its power. The greed bred by colonialism and the racism that pervades in it are powerfully shown in the book. Almayer was driven by love of wealth and love for his daughter. However, the love for his daughter was distorted by the superiority he felt as an European and ultimately ends in tragedy. Throughout the book, Conrad masterfully describes the environment under colonialism as well as the psychological states of mind of the colonists and the natives. A great novel through and through.

The product quality is superb but the book is not illustrated.
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Tim
5.0 out of 5 stars Great novel on the human condition under colonialism
Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2019
Alamyer’s Folly is Joseph Conrad’s first novel and what I would consider to be a little known classic. Yet, its relative lack of fame does not take away its power. The greed bred by colonialism and the racism that pervades in it are powerfully shown in the book. Almayer was driven by love of wealth and love for his daughter. However, the love for his daughter was distorted by the superiority he felt as an European and ultimately ends in tragedy. Throughout the book, Conrad masterfully describes the environment under colonialism as well as the psychological states of mind of the colonists and the natives. A great novel through and through.

The product quality is superb but the book is not illustrated.
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4 people found this helpful
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reading man
3.0 out of 5 stars Not A Great Start, But ...
Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2015
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If you admire the best of Conrad, you should read this apprentice effort, actually his first, if only to see the distance he covered between it and, say, LORD JIM.

F.R. Leavis found the fitting epithet when he called ALMAYER "adjectival". On the other hand, Conrad was learning his craft and, even more worrying, writing in his third language, having begun life as a Polish speaker and jumping to French before he started English as a British merchant seaman.

It's a tangled yarn, to be sure, but not unremittingly unreadable as so many first novels are. OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS, the next novel, isn't much better and is longer, not a positive. The Carol Reed movie of OUTCAST, though it departs from the plot, is preferable as entertainment, if not as enlightenment.

Conrad begins with NARCISSUS and, in spite of a gaggle of negative critics (including the usually perspicacious Leavis), reaches greatness with HEART OF DARKNESS. After that it's one masterpiece after another until THE ROVER and a few other late novels that are as weak as ALMAYER and OUTCAST, not entirely surprising since the law of diminishing returns applies to novelists as well as everything else.
4 people found this helpful
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Lucie Fortin
4.0 out of 5 stars I am happy
Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2014
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I received the book quickly and in good condition. I find the size of the letters a bit small. It was a gift for my husband who was looking for that book since a long time. He seemed very happy with it, so I am happy!
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Sue
5.0 out of 5 stars Good Read
Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2019
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Been reading a lot of JC recently, and discovered that this was part of a trilogy. So got all 3 books and read The Rescue first, then Outcast and then Almayer's Folly. All great books! This edition had the footnotes divided up by chapter (probably a 100 footnotes total [didn't count them]), and a decent introduction. Don't remember if the introduction revealed the plot. The Cambridge website probably has their hardback edition that has their review/essays on the book (but they're usually expensive $100 to $150 or more).
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Corsair
5.0 out of 5 stars Almayer"s Folley is Conrad's most beautiful novel. The images are stunning with the daughter ...
Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2015
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Almayer"s Folley is Conrad's most beautiful novel. The images are stunning with the daughter in white against the imposing green of the jungle!
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Stephen Schwartz
3.0 out of 5 stars Overblown Romance, Unsympathetic Tragedy
Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2003
This book by Conrad is a love story and a tragedy. The tragedy of Nina's father, Almayer--and the love story of Dain and Nina.
But Almayer's Folly is not as great a book as Lord Jim or Nigger of the 'Narcissus,' which are among the great masterpieces of literature.
There are several problems with Conrad's novel. For one thing, Almayer is not sympathetic enough to be a tragic hero. He just comes across as a real jerk. For another, the love story of Dain and Nina is so overblown and romantic as to be almost laughable, comic, and ridiculous. The characters and settings are hard to keep straight, as are the motivations of some of the doings.
Frankly, I found it quite difficult to take any of it seriously. It may be that we are just too distant from Conrad's Borneo in time and place, but this is not a problem in some of Conrad's other novels.
This is an inferior piece of literature. (Why the three stars in that case, you ask. Conrad's writing is so skilled in detail, and the setting and some of the other details so interesting, that the novel is absorbing--and mercifully short.)
3 people found this helpful
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Doctor Moss
4.0 out of 5 stars Early Conrad -- The Folly of Colonialist Dreams
Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2018
Almayer’s Folly is Conrad’s first novel. Although I’ve read several of Conrad’s novels, I’m not confident enough to definitely rank this among his other works. I do think it shows an earlier stage in his narrative skills than some of his later, better known works.

Like other Conrad stories, it places colonialism at the center, along with colonialism’s related themes of race, class, and the kinds of dreams that colonialism affords. Kasper Almayer is a Dutch trader in nineteenth century Borneo. His dreams are entwined with the promise of treasure, his hopes for and love for his daughter, and of course the rewards of wealth and status.

His dreams and his folly are synonymous. The locals refer to the pretentious house that Almayer has had built, as the future home of a dream life, as his folly. But it’s the whole package that really seems to be the folly — a white man {“the only white man on the east coast”) hoping to find and/or make something of himself in the colonial world that he couldn’t accomplish elsewhere.

Those hopes are understandable when fueled by a vision of opportunity in an undeveloped land and by simple naivety. The colonial world isn’t a blank canvas — it’s just one that is unfamiliar enough that it’s hard to read and easy to misread. In particular, Almayer’s dedication to and hopes for his daughter run up against some hard realities. She is his daughter by way of a business-like marriage to a Malay wife. She is “half white” among the Malays, no matter that she is his daughter, and she is half Malay to herself. What’s more, like any daughter but especially one at a colonial crossroads, she has a mind and will of her own that is inevitably at odds with her father’s dreams.

Neither his daughter nor the colonial world they inhabit is going to fall into line for Almayer.

The book itself takes some time to get going. Probably the first quarter of the book is exposition — stage setting and backfilling for the story that finally joins the present tense. From there on, Conrad’s narrative is compelling. There are twists and turns, although they follow a pattern that lets your mind run a little bit ahead of the story. Not necessarily a bad thing, since so much of what Conrad conveys is more a dawning realization of Almayer’s folly than just a resolution of events.
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Mac S
5.0 out of 5 stars Take a breath
Reviewed in Canada on January 20, 2021
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No-one scratches the exposed nerve of human character better than Conrad.
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Rashmi Prasad
5.0 out of 5 stars Good condition.....price worth
Reviewed in India on July 5, 2022
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 Good print....book is in good condition.... worth the price
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Rashmi Prasad
5.0 out of 5 stars Good condition.....price worth
Reviewed in India on July 5, 2022
Good print....book is in good condition.... worth the price
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Bernard Guiollot
3.0 out of 5 stars COMMENTAIRE
Reviewed in France on June 9, 2014
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ALMAYERS FOLLY

PREMIER OUVRAGE PUBLIE PAR CONRAD
LIVRE TRES CARACTERISTIQUE EPOQUE COLONIALE ET CONTACT ENTRE PEUPLES OCCIDENTAUX ET ORIENTAUX
C EST LE PIERRE LOTI DE L ANGLETERRE MEME SI POLONAIS D ORIGINE
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たま
5.0 out of 5 stars 南国で苦悩するAlmayerの人生ドラマ
Reviewed in Japan on July 27, 2016
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１９世紀、ボルネオのSambirで暮らすただ一人の白人Almayer、　商人で海の王といわれた義父から受け継いだ商社を営んでいるが商売はパッとしない。　現地人で海賊の子孫かもしれない妻は彼が嫌いみたいだし混血の娘も彼の思いどうりにはならない。
昔野心家だった主人公の人生ドラマのなかに、家庭内を含む異文化問題、父と嫁ぐ娘の愛憎、川をカヌーで行き来するボルネオの生活や南国の景色、進出する欧米勢力という時代背景、など種々の要素が練りこまれています。　アラブ人の商売敵、地域を取り仕切る半分軍閥で半分商人のマレー人、ジャワのプリンス、アヘンまみれの怪しげな中国人の隣人、色々な人々が登場します。　ストーリーも面白いしお勧めです。
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Luc REYNAERT
5.0 out of 5 stars The hypocrisy of the white man
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 20, 2008
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This excellent short novel is very representative for Joseph Conrad's work. Its main theme of the foolish, dangerous and deadly dreams of colonialists was also treated in his short story `An Outpost of Progress' (in 'Tales of Unrest') and in his masterpiece `Heart of Darkness'.

The main character in this story dreams of finding a mysterious treasure in order to be able to return to his homeland and live for the rest of his life in `untold wealth'.
For the indigenous, he is not more than another `white man that comes to us to trade, with prayers on his lips and loaded guns in his hands.' He shows `the same manifestations of love and hate and of sordid greed chasing the uncertain dollar in all its multifarious and vanishing shapes.'
He is bitterly confronted with `the savage mood which civilization could never destroy'.

For Conrad, `no two beings understand each other', so certainly not the `savage' and the `white man'.
More, the `uncompromising sincerity of Malay kinsmen' stands in sharp contrast with `the sleek hypocrisy of white people with their vivid but foolish dreams'.

This novel has not the same high standard as `Heart of Darkness', but should not be missed.
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