The Shadow Line: A Confession

A young officer abruptly gives up his berth on a steamer in an Eastern port, restless and bored, and then unexpectedly receives his first command: a sailing ship at Bangkok whose captain has died. At sea the ship is trapped by a dead calm in the Gulf of Siam, fever spreads through the crew, and the young captain discovers that the quinine he relied on has been replaced by worthless powder, while the sick first mate believes the dead captain's ghost is cursing the ship.

Joseph Conrad based the story, published in 1917, on his own first command, the Otago, in 1888, and dedicated it to his son Borys, then fighting in the First World War. It is a tale of crossing the line from youth into maturity. Read Typhoon and Youth.

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.