Almayer's Folly. A Story of an Eastern River

London: Fisher Unwin, 1895 First edition, first issue. Publisher's dark green cloth, spine lettered in gilt. A very good or better copy, spine lightly toned, upper spine worn with some fraying, bookplate of John C. Eckel to front pastedown. Overall, an attractive copy. Wise 1. Joseph Conrad's first novel Almayer's Folly, published in 1895, incorporated his experiences serving as a merchant marine for the French and British governments near the height of the British Empire. The book centers upon Kaspar Almayer, a poor Dutch businessman in Indonesia, his Malayan wife, and their daughter Nina. The story follows a series of Almayer's poor decisions that lead his wife to loath him, his daughter to abandon him, and to his eventual demise. Conrad's unconventional affinity for writing anti-heroes was influential to subsequent generations of authors and defined him as an early modernist. This copy of Almayer's Folly was owned by author John C. Eckel and bears his bookplate. Eckel, born in 1858, wrote on topics ranging from baseball to early airplanes. His best-known work is a 1932 bibliography on Charles Dickens, The First Editions of the Writings of Charles Dickens and Their Values: A Bibliography.. Hard Cover. Very Good.