Amy Foster

Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.0

Word count: 68K words
Chapters: 7

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Amy Foster by Joseph ConradAuthor: Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jan 9, 2006

Editor's review

Conrad's short story "Amy Foster" is modest in length yet distills the core themes he returns to throughout his work: the misunderstanding and estrangement that ensue when a stranger enters a closed community. The story centers on the marriage between a foreigner stranded in the English countryside and a local girl; language barriers, cultural difference, and communal prejudice pile up layer by layer, leading to an unsettling ending. The narration is restrained, and the point of view shifts between onlookers and the principals, so readers must piece together information and judge the characters' motives for themselves—this is precisely where the work's tension lies. As a public-domain eBook, it suits close reading of a short story in English literature courses and readers who want a compact introduction to Conrad's narrative style. Noticing what the narrator knows and does not know will prove more rewarding than simply following the plot.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English literature readers who want a short introduction to Conrad's work
Students in English or literature courses who need to close-read short fiction
Readers interested in themes of immigrants, outsiders, and communal prejudice
Readers who enjoy restrained narration and interpreting characters' motives for themselves

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting a clear moral conclusion or a tidy ending
Beginners whose English is not yet strong enough for literary long sentences
Readers who prefer light, casual reading and do not want to do close textual analysis

Reading tips

Read through once for plot, then a second time to trace what information the narrator provides and what is omitted
Mark passages describing the foreigner's speech and manner, and consider where the locals' judgments come from
After finishing, look into Conrad's life and creative background, then revisit the seafaring and immigrant experience in the story
Read alongside other Conrad short stories to compare his use of narrative point of view

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Can I read this without having read Conrad's novels?

Yes. It is a short story, well suited as an introduction, and its themes and narrative technique are representative of Conrad's style. Moving on to his novels afterward will make it easier to adjust to their narrative pacing.

The ending is unsettling—is it suitable for classroom discussion?

Precisely because the ending is heavy, it is often used to discuss prejudice, failures of communication, and communal exclusion. Teachers can note the tone in advance and, in discussion, guide students to focus on narrative point of view rather than the shock of the plot alone.

Does this electronic edition have annotations?

The Project Gutenberg edition is the public-domain English text and generally contains no modern annotations or introduction. For cultural background and difficult usages, a dictionary or relevant scholarly sources are recommended.

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About the author

Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924 Author

Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) was a novelist best known in English literature for his sea and colonial fiction, with 39 of his works held in this collection. Public information is limited, so his biography is not detailed here. Such representative works as Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Nostromo, Typhoon, The Secret Agent, The Shadow Line and Victory show that he often set his stories against the sea, the jungle and foreign ports, following characters as they face isolation, danger and moral dilemmas. His prose is restrained and measured, his structures often rely on retrospection and multiple points of view, and his psychological portraiture is finely drawn. He raised the adventure story into a serious examination of human nature, loyalty and the pretenses of civilization, and his influence on later English fiction has been profound.