In this re-evaluation of the writings of Joseph Conrad, Michael Greaney places language and narrative at the heart of his literary achievement. As a trilingual Polish expatriate, Conrad brought a formidable linguistic self-consciousness to the English novel and tensions between speech and writing are the defining obsessions of his career. Greaney examines a wide range of Conrad's work, combining recent critical approaches to language in post-structuralism with an impressive command of linguistic theory.