“There are things you find nothing about in books”: Joseph Conrad's Typhoon; Inscribed by Him
Typhoon.
Conrad, Joseph.
$2,200.00Item Number: 51088
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1923.
First edition, later printing of this classic sea yarn by Conrad. Octavo, original blue cloth, gilt stamped to the front panel, gilt titles to the spine, frontispiece. Boldly inscribed by Joseph Conrad on the front free endpaper. In near fine condition with some light offsetting to the endpapers.
Typhoon is most likely based upon Conrad's actual experience of seaman's life, and probably on a real incident aboard of the steamer John P. Best. The Typhoon describes how Captain MacWhirr sails the s/s Nan-Shan, a British-built steamer running under the Siamese flag, into a typhoon a mature tropical cyclone of the northwestern part of the Pacific Ocean. Other characters include the young Jukes most probably an alter ego of Conrad from the time he had sailed under captain John McWhirr and Solomon Rout, the chief engineer. The novella classically evokes the seafaring life at the turn of the century. While Macwhirr, who, according to Conrad, never walked on this Earth is emotionally estranged from his family and crew, and though he refuses to consider an alternate course to skirt the typhoon, his indomitable will in the face of a superior natural force elicits grudging admiration.