Introduction

Abstract

This chapter begins by contextualising the Charlie Marlow texts, considering them in terms of their original publication in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine and explores them in relation to Victorian realism and modernist experimentation. It situates Joseph Conrad's work at the intersection of Victorianism and modernism, a literary-historical context that introduces the possibility of approaching the two literary movements in terms of their points of similarity rather than in their points of divergence. In making this argument, the discussion approaches the Marlow texts in terms of a narrative hermeneutics that emerges from the work of Ricoeur and Kermode and which is concerned with the manner in which literary narratives approach the representation of truth. Charlie Marlow; Victorian realism; Joseph Conrad; modernist experimentation; narrative hermeneutics; Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine