Lord Jim is a novel by Joseph Conrad originally published as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine from October 1899 to November 1900.An early and primary event is the abandonment of a ship in distress by its crew including the young British seaman Jim. He is publicly censured for this action and the novel follows his later attempts at coming to terms with himself and his past.In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Lord Jim 85th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.Recovered from an injury, Jim seeks a position on the Patna, a steamer whose journey is to carry 800 "pilgrims of an exacting faith" to a Red Sea port. He is hired as first mate. After some days of smooth sailing, the ship hits something in the night and begins taking on water. The captain thinks the ship will sink, and Jim agrees, but wants to put the passengers on the few boats before that can happen. The captain and two other crewmen think only to save themselves, freeing a boat. The helmsmen remain, as no order has been given to do otherwise. In a crucial moment, Jim jumps into the boat with the captain. A few days later, they are picked up by an outbound steamer. When they reach port, it is well known that the Patna and its passengers were brought in safely by a crew from a French gun ship. The action of the captain is against the code of seamen, abandoning both ship and passengers. The others on the small boat leave before the magistrate's court is convened; Jim is left to testify. All lose their certificates to sail. Brierly is on the panel of the court, a captain of perfect reputation, who commits suicide days after this trial.
About the Author: Joseph Conrad born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski; 3 December 1857 - 3 August 1924) was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. He joined the British merchant marine in 1878, and was granted British nationality in 1886. Though he did not speak English fluently until he was in his twenties, he was a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote stories and novels, many with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of an impassive, inscrutable universe. Conrad is considered an early modernist, though his works still contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced many authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway. Writing in the heyday of the British Empire, Conrad drew on, among other things, his native Poland's national experiences, [note 3] and his personal experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world - including imperialism and colonialism - while profoundly exploring the human psyche. In 1894, aged 36, Conrad reluctantly gave up the sea, partly because of poor health, partly due to unavailability of ships, and partly because he had become so fascinated with writing that he had decided on a literary career. His first novel, Almayer's Folly, set on the east coast of Borneo, was published in 1895. Its appearance marked his first use of the pen name "Joseph Conrad"; "Konrad" was, of course, the third of his Polish given names, but his use of it - in the anglicised version, "Conrad" - may also have been an homage to the Polish Romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz's patriotic narrative poem, Konrad Wallenrod. Edward Garnett, a young publisher's reader and literary critic who would play one of the chief supporting roles in Conrad's literary career, had - like Unwin's first reader of Almayer's Folly, Wilfrid Hugh Chesson - been impressed by the manuscript, but Garnett had been "uncertain whether the English was good enough for publication." Garnett had shown the novel to his wife, Constance Garnett, later a well-known translator of Russian literature. She had thought Conrad's foreignness a positive merit. While Conrad had only limited personal acquaintance with the peoples of Maritime Southeast Asia, the region looms large in his early work.