Book description
'Then, on a fine moonlight night, all the rats left the ship.'
Five men sit around a mahogany table, drinking claret. As the wine
loosens their tongues, one tells a story from his youth, recounting
the strange voyage of the doomed ship Judea. Inspired by Conrad's own
experiences at sea, Youth is a haunting tale about ill omens, the
passing of time and the making of a man.
Joseph Conrad (originally J zef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski)
was born in the Ukraine in 1857 and grew up under Tsarist autocracy. In
1886 he obtained British nationality and his Master's certificate in the
British Merchant Service. Eight years later he left the sea to devote
himself to writing, publishing his first novel,
Almayer's Folly
, in 1895. The following year he married Jessie George and eventually
settled in Kent, where he produced within fifteen years such modern
classics as
Youth
,
Heart of Darkness
,
Lord Jim
,
Typhoon
,
Nostromo
,
The Secret Agent
and
Under Western Eyes
.He continued to write until his death in 1924. Today Conrad is
generally regarded as one of the greatest writers of fiction in English
- his third language.
