Joseph Conrad once voiced the hope that from the reading of his pages might "emerge at last the vision of a personality: the man behind the books ... a coherent justifiable personality both in its origin and its actions." Dr. Meyer arrives at a unified picture of Conrad's personality by applying psychoanalytic principles and insights to two main sets of data on Conrad: his unusual history and his creative work. Basic psychological and emotional patterns appear repetitively, and Dr. Meyer concludes that Conrad's art served an important psychological function in his life--the achievement...