The ship Patna has run aground and is taking on water. The 800 pilgrims on board are asleep, oblivious to the crisis and the fact that there are only seven lifeboats. In a panic, the captain launches a lifeboat to abandon the ship and everyone on board, convinced that the Patna is lost. The newly hired sailor Jim reluctantly follows the captain—a decision he will regret for the rest of his life.
Lord Jim is a masterful tale of a young man’s struggle with his own morality and has been chosen by the Modern Library as one of the hundred best English-language novels of all time.

JOSEPH CONRAD [1857–1924] was born in Ukraine to Polish parents, went to sea at the age of seventeen, and ended his career as a captain in the English merchant navy. His most famous work is the novella Heart of Darkness [1899], adapted to film by Francis Ford Coppola in 1979 as Apocalypse Now.