This paper presupposes that, despite the enormous critical achievements during the last two decades following the Conrad revival of the early ``fifties, there has never been any thoroughgoing effort to make an overall survey of Conrad``s idea of reality and to define the problems deriving from his artistic attempt to represent it in fiction. The present writer examines, discusses, and evaluates various primary sources with a view to formulating by an inductive method theories concerning the representation of reality. The materials used consist of Conrad``s personal letters, prefaces to the collected works, critical writings, autobiographical reminiscences, and in some instances even passages from his fictional writings. In the first section Conrad``s idea of truth, history, and fiction is discussed, while the second section deals with various artistic difficulties that Conrad had to solve in the course of his efforts to grapple with elusive reality. A discussion in the third section of the fundamentally romantic nature of Conrad``s reality leads to the conclusion of the fourth and last section that the ultimate purpose enterained by Conrad the novelist was to represent the truth beyond the surface of reality.