An Outcast Of The Islands

The Shadow-Line and The Arrow of Gold reach back into his personal past, while The Rescue was completed primarily to settle his longstanding anxiety about a work that had been stalled for two decades. The Rescue returns to the romance world of Malay that provided the setting of his first two novels, Almayer's Folly and An Outcast of the Islands, as well as such early tales as «Karain» and "The Lagoon." It is a nostalgic look at his personal and literary past and provides something of an escape from Conrad's present anxieties and harsher memories. Based on his command of the Otago in 1888, The Shadow-Line explores the difference between merely practicing skills and providing -711- leadership to a community. Conrad had written in Richard Curle's copy of the novel, "This story had been in my mind for some years. Originally I used to think of it under the name of First Command. When I managed in the second year of war to concentrate my mind sufficiently to begin working I turned to this subject as the easiest. But in consequence of my changed mental attitude to it, it became The ShadowLine." In contrast, the seemingly similar Secret Sharer emphasized the captain-narrator's personal psychological development rather than his ability to occupy a position in terms of standards established by maritime tradition ...»