Joseph Conrad
(1857 - 1924)
Leaving Kraków for Marseille at the age of sixteen in 1874, Joseph Conrad, the son of a Polish nobleman, made his earliest sea voyages aboard steamers bound for the West Indies—at one time running guns—and docked in England for the first time in 1878, knowing only a few words of the country’s language. He served sixteen years in the British Merchant Navy, his experiences furnishing him with material for the works of fiction he published in English, among them, Heart of Darkness in 1899, Lord Jim in 1900, and Typhoon in 1902.