The story of a university student unwittingly caught up in the political turmoil of prerevolutionary Russia, Under Western Eyes is one of Joseph's Conrad's finest literary achievements.
The young Razumov's moral strength and integrity are questioned when a fellow student, who has assassinated a police chief, takes refuge with him. Set in St. Petersburg amid political intrigue and espionage, this novel hauntingly speaks to the broader, timeless questions of human responsibility and honor. As the French novelist Andre Gide reflected in his journal in 1930, "One does not know what deserves more admiration: the amazing subject, the fitting together, the boldness of so difficult an undertaking, the patience in the development of the story, the complete understanding and exhausting of the subject."
Introduction by Jeffrey Meyers
With Newly Commissioned Explanatory Notes
About the Author
Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Ukraine, in 1857. After both of his parents died of tuberculosis, Conrad went to live with his uncle in Switzerland. After attending school in Kraków, he joined the French and then the British merchant marines, sailing to exotic destinations like the West Indies and the Congo, which would later become the backdrops for some of his fiction. In 1894 he settled down in England and began his literary career. In 1902 Conrad published his most famous work, Heart of Darkness, and continued to write until his death in 1924.
Jeffrey Meyers, a distinguished biographer, is the author of Hemingway, D.H. Lawrence and Joseph Conrad. He lives in Berkeley, California.
