Showing results for "the-traders’-war:-the-merchant-princes-books-3-and-4" in Literary Fiction

Bristol in 1787 is booming, from its stinking docks to its elegant new houses. Josiah Cole, a small dockside trader, is prepared to gamble everything to join the big players of the city. But he needs ready cash and a well-connected wife. An arranged marriage to Frances Scott is a mutually convenient solution. Trading her social contacts for Josiah's protection, Frances enters the world of the Bristol merchants and finds her life and fortune dependent on the respectable trade of sugar, rum, and slaves.

First published in 1902, Conrad's story describes intensely and in stark detail how greed can so easily drive civilised and enlightened men to revert to primitive savagery. Set against the background of the European ivory trade in Africa, Heart Of Darkness is narrator Marlow's account of his journey in search of the legendary and mystical Kurtz, the most successful trader of them all, who is now reported to be ill.