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The family story, Almayer's Folly, Conrad's first novel, is the powerful adventure story of Almayer, a Dutch trader working in Borneo, his wife, his daughter, and Dain, the daughter's native lover that features the sad parting of father and daughter. Almayer's Folly is about a poor businessman who dreams of finding a hidden gold mine and becoming very wealthy. He is a white European, married to a native Malayan; they have one daughter named Nina. He fails to find the goldmine, and comes home saddened. Previously, he had heard that the British were to conquer the Pantai River, and he had built a large, lavish house near where he resided at the time, in order to welcome the invaders. However, the conquest never took place, and the house remained unfinished. Some passing Dutch seamen had called the house Almayer's Folly . Now, Almayer continually goes out for long trips, but eventually he stops doing so and stays home with his hopeless daydreams of riches and splendor. His native wife loathes him for this. One day, a Malayan prince, Dain Maroola, came to see Almayer about trading, and while there he falls in love with Nina. Mrs. Almayer kept arranging meetings for Nina and Dain. She wanted them to marry so her daughter could stay native, because she was highly distrustful of the white men and their ways. Dain left but vowed to return to help Almayer find the gold mine. When he does return, he goes straight to Lakamba, a Malayan rajah, and told him that he found the gold mine and that some Dutchmen had captured his ship. The rajah tells him to kill Almayer before the Dutch arrive because he is not needed to find the gold now. The following morning, an unidentifiable native corpse is found floating in the river, wearing an ankle bracelet very similar to Dain's. Almayer was distraught because Dain was his only chance at finding the secret mine

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9781774411711

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Joseph Conrad (3 December 1857 - 3 August 1924) was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. Though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he was a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature Conrad wrote stories and novels, many with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of what he saw as an impassive, inscrutable universe Conrad is considered an early modernist, though his works contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced numerous authors, and many films have been adapted from, or inspired by, his works. Numerous writers and critics have commented that Conrad's fictional works, written largely in the first two decades of the 20th century, seem to have anticipated later world events. Writing near the peak of the British Empire, Conrad drew, among other things, on his native Poland's national experiences and on his own experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world-including imperialism and colonialism-and that profoundly explore the human psyche.

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