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Nostromo
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Nostromo Paperback - 2016

by Edinson Saguez (Editor); Joseph Conrad


About this book

Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard is often regarded as author’s most ambitious work. The novel is set in the mining town of Sulaco, a port in the fictitious South American republic of Costaguana. The region has history of tyranny, revolution, and war, but more recently, the area has enjoyed newfound stability. Charles "don Carlos" Gould aims to promote this time of peace and prosperity by reopening his family’s silver mine in order to contribute to the local economy and, of course, personally profit. But as the political climate intensifies once again, Gould finds that he must pay off various armed revolutionaries in addition to government officials, bandits, and the church in order to stay in business. In this political commentary on imperialism, no character wins; all are dealt ironic fates.

Originally published serially in two volumes of T.P.'s Weekly, Nostromo is ranked 47th on Modern Library’s “100 Best” English-language novels of the 20th century. In 1991, a film adaptation of Nostromo, starring Marlon Brando, among others, was to be produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by David Lean, but Lean died a few weeks before filming began. In 1996, a television adaptation of the novel was produced and aired on the BBC, Radiotelevisione Italiana, Televisión Española, and WGBH Boston.

Nostromo has often been referenced in other works. Much of the story in Andrew M. Greeley's Virgin and Martyr (1985) is set in the fictional country of Costaguana — and many of the other place names in the work are borrowed from Nostromo as well. Perhaps more familiar: In Ridley Scott's 1979 science-fiction horror film, Alien, the spacecraft is named the Nostromo and in James Cameron's 1986 sequel, Aliens, the Marine transport vessel is named Sulaco.

From the publisher

Nostromo (full title Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard) is a 1904 novel by Joseph Conrad, set in the fictitious South American republic of "Costaguana". It was originally published serially in two volumes of T.P.'s Weekly. Conrad set his novel in the mining town of Sulaco, an imaginary port in the occidental region of the imaginary country of Costaguana. The book has more fully developed characters than any other of his novels, but two characters dominate the narrative: Seor Gould and the eponymous anti-hero, the "incorruptible" Nostromo. In his "Author's Note" to early editions of Nostromo, Joseph Conrad provides a rather detailed explanation of the inspirational origins of his novel. There he relates how, as a young man of about seventeen, while serving aboard a ship in the Gulf of Mexico, he heard the story of a man who had stolen, single-handedly, "a whole lighter-full of silver". As Conrad goes on to relate, he forgot about the story until some twenty-five years later when he came across a travelogue in a used bookshop in which the author related how he worked for years aboard a schooner whose master claimed to be that very thief who had stolen the silver In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Nostromo 47th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "I'd rather have writtenNostromo than any other novel.

First Edition Identification

Harper & Brothers first published Nostromo in London in 1904. Bound in blue cloth, the first edition contains a point of issue on p. 187: the page is numbered as 871. The novel was originally published in a print run of just 2,000 copies in which 1904 (the year of publication) appears on the title page with no additional printings listed.

Details

  • Title Nostromo
  • Author Edinson Saguez (Editor); Joseph Conrad
  • Binding Paperback
  • Pages 390
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
  • Date 2016-10-20
  • ISBN 9781539628477 / 1539628477
  • Weight 1.15 lbs (0.52 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.02 x 5.98 x 0.8 in (22.91 x 15.19 x 2.03 cm)
  • Reading level 1160
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Nostromo
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Nostromo

by Edinson Saguez

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9781539628477
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1539628477
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Description:
Paperback / softback. New.
Item Price
NZ$49.08
NZ$21.20 shipping to USA