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Axel Heyst, a thoughtful, detached Swede who has decided that the only way to avoid pain is to take no part in life, lives alone on a remote island in the…
Axel Heyst, a thoughtful, detached Swede who has decided that the only way to avoid pain is to take no part in life, lives alone on a remote island in the Malay Archipelago after the failure of a coal company. On a visit to a hotel in Surabaya he rescues Lena, a young English violinist in a travelling ladies' orchestra, from the hotel's owner, and takes her back to his island. But the jealous hotelkeeper sends after them three sinister adventurers who believe Heyst is hiding a fortune.
Context and significance
Published in 1915, Victory was one of Joseph Conrad's greatest popular successes, a tense thriller and a philosophical tragedy about whether a man can live without commitment. Conrad, a Polish-born sailor who wrote in his third language, English, knew these waters from his years at sea. Read Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim, and see his life.
About the author
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) was born Józef Korzeniowski to Polish parents in today's Ukraine. His father was exiled for patriotic activities, and Conrad was orphaned at eleven. At sixteen he went to sea from Marseille, and he spent twenty years as a sailor, rising to captain in the British merchant navy.
A voyage up the Congo in 1890 marked him for life and led to Heart of Darkness. He began writing in English, his third language, and became one of its great novelists with Lord Jim and Nostromo. His books ask what people do when no one is watching.