Books with title Nostromo A Tale Of The Seaboard

In his "Author’s Note" in this edition of Nostromo, Joseph Conrad provides a detailed explanation of the inspirational origins of his novel. There he relates how, as a young man of about seventeen, while serving aboard a ship in the Gulf of Mexico, he heard the story of a man who had stolen, single-handedly, "a whole lighter-full of silver". As Conrad goes on to relate, he forgot about the story until some twenty-five years later when he came across a travelogue in a used-book shop in which the author related how he worked for years aboard a schooner whose master claimed to be that very thief who had stolen the silver.

Set in the fictitious mining town of Sulaco, a port city in the imaginary country of Costaguana, "Nostromo" is widely considered as one of Joseph Conrad's best works. It is the story of Senõr Gould, an English expatriate who owns the silver-mining concession in the country. When the country becomes engulfed in increasing political turmoil, Senõr Gould charges Nostromo, his trusted head longshoreman, with the duty of hiding his silver so that it does not fall into the hands of his political enemies. "Nostromo" is a classic tale of the power of money, its ability to corrupt and the turmoil that this corruption can create.

“Nostromo is what he is because I received the inspiration for him in my early days from a Mediterranean sailor. Those who have read certain pages of mine will see at once what I mean when I say that Dominic, the padrone of the Tremolino, might under given circumstances have been a Nostromo. At any rate Dominic would have understood the younger man perfectly—if scornfully. He and I were engaged together in a rather absurd adventure, but the absurdity does not matter. It is a real satisfaction to think that in my very young days there must, after all, have been something in me worthy to command that man's half-bitter fidelity, his half-ironic devotion. Many of Nostromo's speeches I have heard first in Dominic's voice.”

Señor Gould is a native Costaguanero of English descent who owns the silver-mining concession in Sulaco. He is tired of the political instability in Costaguana and its concomitant corruption, and puts his weight behind the Ribierist project, which he believes will finally bring stability to the country after years of misrule and tyranny by self-serving dictators. Instead, the silver mine and the wealth it has generated become a bone for the local warlords to fight over, plunging Costaguana into a new round of chaos. Among others, the revolutionary Montero invades Sulaco; Señor Gould, adamant that his silver should not become spoil for his enemies, entrusts it to Nostromo, the trusted "capataz de los cargadores" (head longshoreman).Nostromo is an Italian expatriate who has risen to that position through his daring exploits. ("Nostromo" is Italian for "mate" or "boatswain", but the name could also be considered a corruption of the Italian phrase "nostro uomo," meaning "our man.") Nostromo's real name is Giovanni Battista Fidanza — Fidanza meaning "trust" in archaic Italian.Nostromo is a commanding figure in Sulaco, respected by the wealthy Europeans and seemingly limitless in his abilities to command power among the local population. He is, however, never admitted to become a part of that society, but rather viewed by the rich as their tool. Some would say that he was also what would today be called a shameless self-publicist. He is believed by Señor Gould to be incorruptible, and for this reason is entrusted with removing a treasure of silver from Sulaco to keep it from the revolutionaries.In the end, the silver is "lost" in a manner such that only Nostromo knows where it is hidden and not, in fact, lost at all. Nostromo's power and fame continues, as he daringly rides to summon the army which saves Sulaco's powerful leaders from the revolutionaries.In Conrad's universe, however, almost no one is incorruptible. The exploit does not bring Nostromo the fame he had hoped for, and he feels slighted and used. Feeling that he has risked his life for nothing, he is consumed by resentment, which leads to his corruption and ultimate destruction, for he had kept secret the true fate of the silver after all others believed it lost at sea, rather than hidden on an offshore island. In recovering the silver for himself, he is shot and killed, mistaken for a trespasser, by the father of his fiancée, the keeper of the lighthouse on the island of Great Isabel.

One of the greatest political novels in any language, Nostromo reenacts the establishment of modern capitalism in a remote South American province locked between the Andes and the Pacific. In Sulaco, a harbor town in the imaginary South American republic of Costaguana, a vivid cast of characters is caught up in a civil war to decide whether its fabulously wealthy silver mine, funded by American money but owned by a third-generation English immigrant, can be preserved from the hands of venal politicians. Greed and corruption seep into the lives of everyone, and Nostromo, the principled foreman of the mine, is tested to the limit.