View source for A Personal Record

{{Short description|1912 book by Joseph Conrad}}
{{italic title}}{{Infobox book
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| author        	=[[Joseph Conrad]]
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| published     	=1912
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}}{{More citations needed|date=April 2025}}
'''''A Personal Record''''' is an [[Autobiography|autobiographical work]] (or "fragment of biography") by [[Joseph Conrad]], published in 1912.<ref>{{Cite web |title=A Personal Record {{!}} ISBNdb |url=https://isbndb.com/book/9781199707246 |access-date=2025-04-06 |website=isbndb.com}}</ref>

It has also been published under the titles ''A Personal Record: Some Reminiscences'' and ''Some Reminiscences''.

Notoriously unreliable and digressive in structure, it is nonetheless the principal contemporary source for information about the author's life.{{Citation needed|date=September 2009}} It tells about his schooling in [[Russian Partition|Russian Poland]], his sailing in [[Marseille]], the influence of his uncle [[Tadeusz Bobrowski]], and the writing of ''[[Almayer's Folly]]''.

It provides a glimpse of how Conrad wished to be seen by his British public, as well as being an atmospheric work of art.{{Citation needed|date=September 2009}}

The "Familiar Preface" Conrad wrote for it includes the often quoted lines:

"Those who read me know my conviction that the world, the temporal world, rests on a few very simple ideas; so simple that they must be as old as the hills. It rests notably, among others, on the idea of Fidelity."

Conrad wrote a new 'Author's Note' to A Personal Record for the Doubleday collected edition of his works (published in 1920) in which he discussed his friendship with the British colonial official and writer [[Hugh Clifford (colonial administrator)|Hugh Clifford]].

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/joseph-conrad/a-personal-record}}
* {{gutenberg|no=687|name=A Personal Record}}
* {{librivox book | title=A Personal Record | author=Joseph Conrad}}

{{Conrad}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Personal Record, A}}
[[Category:1912 non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Books by Joseph Conrad]]
[[Category:Literary autobiographies]]
[[Category:Harper & Brothers books]]