Problem: 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.

what was his legacy?

Answer with quotes: Conrad's narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced many authors,


Problem: William Patrick Corgan Jr. (born March 17, 1967) is an American musician, songwriter, producer, poet, and professional wrestling magnate. He is best known as the lead singer, primary songwriter, guitarist, and sole permanent member of The Smashing Pumpkins. Formed by Corgan and guitarist James Iha in Chicago, Illinois, in 1988, the band quickly gained steam with the addition of bassist D'arcy Wretzky and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. Strong album sales and large-scale tours propelled the band's increasing fame in the 1990s until their break-up in 2000.

William Patrick Corgan Jr. was born at Columbus Hospital in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood on March 17, 1967 as the oldest son of William Corgan Sr., a blues/rock guitarist, and Martha Louise Maes Corgan Lutz. He was raised Catholic. His parents had one more son, Ricky, before divorcing in 1970. His father was soon remarried to a flight attendant, and Corgan and his brother went to live with them in Glendale Heights, Illinois. During this time, Corgan alleges he was subject to much physical and emotional abuse by his stepmother. Corgan also developed a protective bond with his younger paternal half-brother, who had special needs as a child. When Corgan's father and stepmother separated, all three boys would live alone with the stepmother, with both of Corgan's birth parents living separately within an hour's drive.  Corgan, who grew much faster than his fellow students, was a strong athlete in elementary school. In addition to being a member of his Marquardt Middle School baseball team, he collected baseball cards (amassing over 10,000) and listened to every Chicago Cubs game. However, by the time he began attending Glenbard North High School in Carol Stream, Illinois, he had become only an average athlete. He decided to start playing guitar when he went over to a friend's house and saw his friend's Flying V. Corgan gave his savings to his father, who bought him a used Les Paul knock-off. Corgan, Sr. steered his son stylistically, encouraging him to listen to Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix, but offered little other support, and the younger Corgan taught himself to play the instrument. His musical interests in his formative years included hard rock like Guts-era John Cale, heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath, and mainstream rock like Queen, Boston, ELO, Rush, and Cheap Trick. In high school, Corgan discovered alternative rock through Bauhaus and The Cure.  Corgan performed in a string of bands in high school, and graduated as an honor student. Despite grant and scholarship offers from a number of schools, and a tuition fund left by his grandmother, Corgan decided to pursue music full-time. Not finding the Chicago music scene to his liking, he moved from Chicago to St. Petersburg, Florida in 1985 with his first major band, The Marked (so named for the conspicuous birthmarks of both Corgan and drummer Ron Roesing). Not finding success in St. Petersburg, the band dissolved; Corgan moved back to Chicago to live with his father.  Corgan performed with Wayne Static in Static's first band Deep Blue Dream, in 1987/88.

Did growing up in Chicago impact Billy in any way?

Answer with quotes:
He was raised Catholic.