Joseph Conrad and the Anthropological Dilemma: ‘Bewildered Traveller’

Conrad’s early fiction originated as a response to his travels in Malaysia, Borneo, and the Congo. As a sensitive observer of other cultures and a notable émigré , he was profoundly aware of the psychological impact of travel, and much of his early fiction portrays both literal and figurative voyages of Europeans into other cultures. This is the first detailed analysis of Conrad’s early works in relation to other writings on “primitive” peoples, notably nineteenth-century anthropology, Victorian travel writing, and contemporary anthropological theory.