Joseph Conrad's career at sea

Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski; Berdychiv, Ukraine, 3 December 1857  – 3 August 1924, Bishopsbourne, Kent, England) was a Polish author who wrote in English after settling in England. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in English, though he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties, and always with a marked Polish accent. Before embarking on his writing career, he had a career sailing in the French, then the British merchant marine; of his 19-year merchant-marine career, only about half that time was spent actually at sea.

Conrad wrote stories and novels, often with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of an indifferent universe. He was a master prose stylist who brought a distinctly non-English tragic sensibility into English literature. He is viewed as a precursor of modernist literature; his narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced many authors up to the present. Many films have been adapted from, or inspired by, Conrad's stories and novels.

Writing in the heyday of the British Empire, Conrad drew on his Polish heritage and on his personal experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world, while plumbing the depths of the human soul.

Arriving in Marseille in 1874, the not quite 17-year-old Joseph Conrad was to have been looked after by a Pole who sailed in French ships, but the sailor was temporarily away and ship pilots became Conrad's first instructors in sailing. He grew to love the Mediterranean, "the cradle of sailing." Conrad, who became a professional sailor, never learned to swim.

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