An English yacht blunders into this confusion and runs aground. When Wingard goes aboard to offer assistance, the crew gives him insolence, not gratitude. He prepares to leave...then sees a woman. She captivates him, literally holds him spellbound. It is a spell that soon wrecks all his hopes and leads to the failure of the important cause to which he is bound.

Almayer's Folly, Joseph Conrad's first novel, is a tale of personal tragedy as well as a broader meditation on the evils of colonialism. Set in the lush jungle of Borneo in the late 1800s, it tells of the Dutch merchant Kaspar Almayer, whose dreams of riches for his beloved daughter, Nina, collapse under the weight of his own greed and prejudice.

First published in 1911, Within the Tides is a collection of four short stories by Joseph Conrad. These stories originate from a group of old sailors swapping tales, and are all centered on the sea even if none of them ever really make it out to sea. Three of the four stories are from the perspective of a rugged, individualistic man. The other, The Partner, shows what happens when a man is not a rugged individualist.

A remarkable book, the story of Flora De Barral, daughter of the Great De Barral, a monumental swindler, and her love for the sea captain who married her. Marlow tells the story in his usual quiet manner which is so dramatic under the quiet, and shows Chance the master hand directing and interfering at any moment.

One of the most complex and darkest novellas of the human condition. Conrad's masterpiece continues to warn what unchecked power coupled with madness can bring. A moving exploration of the Congo and colonial Africa, Heart of Darkness has both entertained and enraged many, given its often controversial xenophobic underpinnings.

Although Polish by birth, Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) is regarded as one of the greatest writers in English, and Heart of Darkness, first published in 1902, is considered by many his "most famous, finest, and most enigmatic story." - Encyclopaedia Britannica. The tale concerns the journey of the narrator (Marlow) up the Congo River on behalf of a Belgian trading company. Far upriver, he encounters the mysterious Kurtz, an ivory trader who exercises an almost godlike sway over the inhabitants of the region. Both repelled and fascinated by the man, Marlow is brought face to face with the...

Amy Foster" is a short story by Joseph Conrad written in 1901, first published in the Illustrated London News (December 1901). A poor emigrant from Central Europe sailing from Hamburg to America is shipwrecked off the coast of England. The residents of nearby villages, at first unaware of the sinking, and hence of the possibility of survivors, regard him as a dangerous tramp and madman. He speaks no English; his strange foreign language frightens them, and they offer him no assistance. Eventually "Yanko Goorall" (as rendered in English spelling) is given shelter and employment by an eccentric...