Before he published his first novel in 1895, Joseph Conrad spent twenty years in the merchant navy, eventually obtaining his master's ticket and commanding the barque Otago, in which he sailed a notable passage from Sydney to Mauritius. This book traces his sea-career, and shows how Captain Jozef Konrad Korzeniowski, master mariner, became Joseph Conrad, master novelist. Conrad was injured on the Highland Forest, burned out of the Palestine, falsely censured for professional misconduct by the master of the Riversdale, survived a brief and dangerous posting as a river-boat captain on the Congo???and finally served as first officer on the famous Torrens, a passenger ship sailing between Adelaide and Great Britain.
