Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) was born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in Berdychiv, in the Russian Empire, the son of Polish patriots who died in exile when he was a child. At seventeen he went to sea, first in French ships and then British, rising to master mariner and taking British nationality in 1886. He left the sea in 1894 and began writing novels in English, his third language, including Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness, Nostromo and The Secret Agent, marked by their moral seriousness, ironic narrators and concern with isolation and betrayal. He lived in Kent, was in debt until late in life, and declined a knighthood in 1924.