Conrad's conception of the art of the novel was not of Polish origin nor was it derived from English sources, as his disparaging reference to The national English novelist’ (LE, p. 132) clearly indicates. In 1928, Richard Curie remarked that it was ‘this preoccupation with the technical side of writing in all its aspects which differentiates him [Conrad] so profoundly from previous schools of English novelists’. In that preoccupation with form, technique, and style, Conrad reflects his French background, and especially the tradition of Flaubert and Maupassant.

A continuity of aesthetic concern has long been acknowledged, of course, between Flaubert, Maupassant, James, Conrad and Ford. According to Ford, he and Conrad during their collaboration were not so much interested in writing novels as in working out ‘the formulation of a literary theory, Conrad seeking most of all a new form for the novel’. And what brought them together in this search was ‘a devotion to Flaubert and Maupassant’ around whom their ‘eternal technical discussions’ revolved, Flaubert being the guiding spirit: ‘We read nothing but French, ’ Ford recalled, ‘you might say it was Flaubert, Flaubert, Flaubert all the way. ’ They ‘read daily together over a space of years’ Flaubert's correspondence, that amazing document which has been ranked ‘among the very few comprehensive arts poétiques that have shaped as well as defined the modern novel’.

Baines's view that Conrad ‘served […] no more than an apprenticeship’ under Flaubert and Maupassant is widely held to this day.