IN: Joseph Conrad (Polish pronunciation: ['juzef ,kon.rad]; born Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski; 3 December 1857 - 3 August 1924) was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. He joined the British merchant marine in 1878, and was granted British citizenship in 1886. Though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he was a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote stories and novels, many with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of an impassive, inscrutable universe.

After the publication of Chance in 1913, Conrad was the subject of more discussion and praise than any other English writer of the time. He had a genius for companionship, and his circle of friends, which he had begun assembling even prior to his first publications, included authors and other leading lights in the arts, such as Henry James, Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham, John Galsworthy, Edward Garnett, Garnett's wife Constance Garnett (translator of Russian literature), Stephen Crane, Hugh Walpole, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Arnold Bennett, Norman Douglas, Jacob Epstein, T. E. Lawrence, Andre Gide, Paul Valery, Maurice Ravel, Valery Larbaud, Saint-John Perse, Edith Wharton, James Huneker, anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, Jozef Retinger (later a founder of the European Movement, which led to the European Union, and author of Conrad and His Contemporaries). Conrad encouraged and mentored younger writers. In the early 1900s he composed a short series of novels in collaboration with Ford Madox Ford. In 1919 and 1922 Conrad's growing renown and prestige among writers and critics in continental Europe fostered his hopes for a Nobel Prize in Literature. Interestingly, it was apparently the French and Swedes - not the English - who favoured Conrad's candidacy. In April 1924 Conrad, who possessed a hereditary Polish status of nobility and coat-of-arms (Nalecz), declined a (non-hereditary) British knighthood offered by Labour Party Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. Conrad kept a distance from official structures -- he never voted in British national elections -- and seems to have been averse to public honours generally; he had already refused honorary degrees from Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and Yale universities. In the Polish People's Republic, translations of Conrad's works were openly published, except for Under Western Eyes, which in the 1980s was published as an underground "bibula". Conrad's narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced many authors, including T. S. Eliot, Maria Dabrowska, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Gerald Basil Edwards, Ernest Hemingway, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Andre Malraux, George Orwell, Graham Greene, William Golding, William Burroughs, Saul Bellow, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Peter Matthiessen, John le Carre, V. S. Naipaul, Philip Roth, Joan Didion, Thomas Pynchon J. M. Coetzee, and Salman Rushdie. Many films have been adapted from, or inspired by, Conrad's works.

Did he ever meet any of these authors?

OUT: his circle of friends, which he had begun assembling even prior to his first publications, included authors and other leading lights in the arts,

input: In early 1987 the single "Shoplifters of the World Unite" was released and reached number 12 on the UK Singles Chart. It was followed by a second compilation, The World Won't Listen. The title was Morrissey's comment on his frustration with the band's lack of mainstream recognition, although the album reached number two in the charts. This was followed by the single "Sheila Take a Bow", the band's second (and last during the band's lifetime) UK top-10 hit. Another compilation, Louder Than Bombs, was intended for the overseas market and covered much the same material as The World Won't Listen, with the addition of "Sheila Take a Bow" and material from Hatful of Hollow which was yet to be released in the US. Despite their continued success, tensions emerged within the band to threaten their split. Johnny Marr was exhausted and took a break from the band in June 1987, which he felt was negatively perceived by his bandmates. In July, Marr left the group because he erroneously thought an NME article entitled "Smiths to Split" was planted by Morrissey. That article, written by Danny Kelly, alleged that Morrissey disliked Marr working with other musicians, and that Marr and Morrissey's personal relationship had reached breaking point. Marr contacted NME to explain that he had not left the band due to personal tensions but because he wanted wider musical scope. Former Easterhouse guitarist Ivor Perry was brought in to replace Marr, and the band recorded some material with him which was never completed, including an early version of "Bengali in Platforms", originally intended as the B-side of "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before". Perry was uncomfortable with the situation, stating "it was like they wanted another Johnny Marr", and the sessions ended with (according to Perry) "Morrissey running out of the studio". By the time the group's fourth album Strangeways, Here We Come was released in September, the band had split. The breakdown in the relationship has been primarily attributed to Morrissey's irritation by Marr's work with other artists and Marr growing frustrated by Morrissey's musical inflexibility. Marr particularly hated Morrissey's obsession with covering 1960s pop artists such as Twinkle and Cilla Black. Marr recalled in 1992, "That was the last straw, really. I didn't form a group to perform Cilla Black songs." In a 1989 interview, Morrissey cited the lack of a managerial figure and business problems as reasons for the band's split. Strangeways, Here We Come peaked at number two in the UK and was their most successful album in the US, reaching number 55 on the Billboard 200. It received a lukewarm reception from critics, but both Morrissey and Marr name it as their favourite Smiths album. A couple of further singles from Strangeways were released with live, session and demo tracks as B-sides. The following year the live recording Rank, recorded in 1986 with Craig Gannon on rhythm guitar, repeated the UK chart success of previous albums.

Answer this question "what other aspects of their story did you find interesting?"
output:
Easterhouse guitarist Ivor Perry was brought in to replace Marr, and the band recorded some material with him which was never completed,