Author Description

About Tales of Hearsay Tales of Hearsay is a collection of short stories by Polish-British author Joseph Conrad, first published in 1925. He dared not make a sound, shrinking as a man would do from the prosaic necessities of existence. As usual, it was the woman who had the courage. Her voice was heard first—almost conventional while her being vibrated yet with conflicting emotions. “Tell me something,” she said. The darkness hid his surprise and then his smile. Had he not just said to her everything worth saying in the world—and that not for the first time! “What am I to tell you?” he asked, in a voice creditably steady. He was beginning to feel grateful to her for that something final in her tone which had eased the strain. “Why not tell me a tale?” Gathered in a single volume and published posthumously in 1925, a year after Conrad's death, all four of the stories in Tales of Hearsay had previously appeared separately in various literary journals. The Warrior's Soul takes the reader back in time to Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, and Prince Roman, set in the Polish–Russian War of 1830–31, is a story based on the real-life history of a Polish prince who renounces his title to fight as a soldier against Russian oppression. In The Tale, the narrator recounts a chilling story involving a British naval commander's unresolved guilt and remorse, and in The Black Mate, the bitter Captain Johns is at odds with his new mate, a mysterious black-haired sailor. This wonderful collection, showcasing Conrad as a master of psychological manipulation, will delight anyone who appreciates beautifully woven tales.