Typhoon | Literary Precedents

Typhoon Literary Precedents

Conrad's literary precedents for "Typhoon," as with most of his sea fiction, included the novels of Frederick Marryat and the sea fiction of James Fenimore Cooper. In fact, Conrad once published an essay in Outlook (June 4, 1898) praising the fiction of Cooper and Marryat, which he claimed were his favorite reading in boyhood and youth.

On the other hand, it seems unlikely that Conrad had much knowledge of Herman Melville's fiction at this time; but if he had, Melville was never a major influence. In fact, it is recorded in Zdzislaw Najder's Joseph Conrad: A Chronicle (1983) that Conrad late in life expressed dislike tot Moby-Dick (1851).

It should be noted, however, that despite the precedents of such writers as Marryat and James Fenimore Cooper, Conrad's fiction was more influenced by the French realistic tradition associated with Gustav Flaubert and Guy de Maupassant. The realistic...
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