Joseph Conrad: The Shadow-Line (EBook, 2010, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group)
The masterpiece of Joseph Conrad's later years, the autobiographical short novel The Shadow-Line depicts a young man at a crossroads in his life, facing a desperate crisis that marks the "shadow-line" between youth and maturity.This brief but intense story is a dramatically fictionalized account of Conrad's first command as a young sea captain trapped aboard a becalmed, fever-wracked, and seemingly haunted ship. With no wind in sight and his crew disabled by malaria, the narrator discovers that the medicine necessary to save the sick men is missing and its absence …
The masterpiece of Joseph Conrad's later years, the autobiographical short novel The Shadow-Line depicts a young man at a crossroads in his life, facing a desperate crisis that marks the "shadow-line" between youth and maturity.This brief but intense story is a dramatically fictionalized account of Conrad's first command as a young sea captain trapped aboard a becalmed, fever-wracked, and seemingly haunted ship. With no wind in sight and his crew disabled by malaria, the narrator discovers that the medicine necessary to save the sick men is missing and its absence has been deliberately concealed. Meanwhile, his increasingly frightened first mate is convinced that the malignant ghost of the previous captain has cursed them. Suspenseful, atmospheric, and deceptively simple, Conrad's tale of the sea reflects the complex themes of his most famous novels, Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness. From the Trade Paperback edition.
eBook
English language
Published May 31, 2010 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
The blurb above really tells most of what the story is about - a young man given his first command, and coming of age by learning to deal with disaster
Anyone who likes Conrad will enjoy this.
As a side note - this story avoids any of the "that's how they thought back then" issues that some of his other books contain.
