SOURCE: "Conrad and His 'Sea Stuff," in Conradiana, Vol. VI, No. 1, 1974, pp. 3-18.

In the following essay, Messenger recounts Joseph Conrad's conflict between being a writer of popular sea romances and one of serious literature, using his novel The Nigger of the "Narcissus" as a test case that signaled Conrad's shift to the latter.

It seems to me that people imagine I sit here and brood over sea stuff. That is quite a mistake.

—Conrad to H. S. Canby, April 7, 1924

In later life, his fame safely established, Joseph Conrad fought against being called a sea writer. Certainly he cannot be blamed for objecting to this oversimplification, but however justified his complaint, it is worth noting that in general his most violent outbursts were reserved for imputations that revealed truths about him that for one reason or another he found uncomfortable. His railing against Dostoevsky and Melville, for example...