Nostromo

Conrad's next work, Nostromo (December 1902–August 1904), was to be both his ‘largest canvas’ and by almost general agreement, his masterpiece. A considerable amount of critical investigation has shown that Conrad drew many ‘hints for characters, names, incidents, topography’ as well as ‘suggestions for important movements within the historical, socio-economic world of the novel’ from several historical works on South America. Only recently has much attention been paid to his use of imaginative literature in this novel, although his dependence on Anatole France, Flaubert, Maupassant, and possibly Hugo, is remarkable.

As Leavis said, in Nostromo Conrad ‘is openly and triumphantly the artist by métier, conscious of French initiation and of fellowship in craft with Flaubert’. This statement requires illustration, but also some immediate qualification. While the legacy of Flaubert may be felt as a general and pervasive fact in Nostromo, it should also be stressed that Conrad's main textual reliance was not on Flaubert or Maupassant but rather on Anatole France, a writer who plays an increasingly important part in the novels from Nostromo onwards. It is appropriate, then, to begin this section by focusing on that Francian legacy and the strikingly specific contribution to Nostromo made by Anatole France.

Conrad borrowed from L'Anneau d'améthyste (1899) – the third volume of France's L'Histoire contemporaine for the characterization of Pedrito Montero.