Books with title Lord Jim : A Tale

LORD JIM (1900) is the story of a ship which collides with “a floating derelict” and will doubtlessly “go down at any moment” during a “silent black squall.” The ship, old and rust-eaten, is voyaging across the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea. Aboard are eight-hundred pilgrims. Terror possesses the captain and several of his officers, who jump, and thus wantonly abandon the sleeping passengers who are unaware of their peril. For the crew members safe in their life-boat, dishonor is better than death. In the words of the story’s narrator, Captain Marlow, LORD JIM portrays “those struggles of an individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what his moral identity should be. . . .” That individual is Jim, who serves as the chief mate of the Patna and who also “jumps.” Recurringly Jim envisions himself as “always an example of devotion to duty and as unflinching as a hero in a book.” But his heroic dream of “saving people from sinking ships . . . ” does not square with what he really represents: one who falls from grace, and whose “crime” is “a breach of faith with the community of mankind.” Jim’s is also the story of a man in search of some form of atonement once he recognizes that his . . . his dream of “the success of his imaginary achievements,” constitute a romantic illusion. This WISEBLOOD CLASSIC EDITION contains a powerful interpretive essay by Professor George Panichas. WISEBLOOD BOOKS is an Editing & Publishing Line dedicated to preserving, editing, and publishing fiction, essays, and other works fit for the world stage. We believe many manuscripts that should be published widely remain buried in desk drawers because they cannot meet the New York publishing industry's often dubious demands. We aim to remedy that. WISEBLOOD CLASSICS brings hard-to-find works back into being, and introduces forgotten writings of great merit to a new generation. Visit us at www.wisebloodbooks.com.

Lord Jim tells the story of a young, idealistic Englishman-"as unflinching as a hero in a book"-who is disgraced by a single act of cowardice while serving as an officer on the Patna, a merchant-ship sailing from an eastern port. His life is ruined: an isolated scandal has assumed horrifying proportions. But then he is befriended by an older man named Marlow who helps to establish him in exotic Patusan, a remote Malay settlement where his courage is put to the test once more. Lord Jim is about courage and cowardice, self-knowledge and personal growth. It is one of the most profound and rewarding psychological novels in English. Set in the context of social change and colonial expansion in late Victorian England, it embodies in Jim the values and turmoil of a fading empire.

This is a novel about a man's lifelong efforts to atone for an act of instinctive cowardice. Young Jim, chief mate of the Patna, dreams of being a hero. When the Patna threatens to sink and the cowardly officers decide to save their own skins and escape in the few lifeboats, Jim despises them. But at the last moment, dazed by horror and confusion, he joins them, deserting the 800 Muslim passengers to apparent death. Tormented by this act of cowardice and desertion, Jim flees to the West. Living among the natives in Patusan, a remote trading post in the jungle, he is able to cease sacrificing himself on the altar of conscience. When he defends Patusan against the evil ''Gentleman Brown,'' his efforts create order and well-being, thereby winning the respect and affection of the people for whom he becomes Tuan, or Lord Jim.

JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924) was one of the most remarkable figures in English literature. Born in Poland, and originally named Josef Teodor Konrad Walecz Korzeniowski, he went to sea at the age of seventeen and eventually joined the crew of an English vessel, becoming a British citizen in the process. He retired from the sea in 1894 and took up the pen, writing all his works in English, a language he had only learned as an adult. Despite this, he was a master stylist, both lush and precise. His outsider's eye gave him special insights into the moral dangers of the great age of European empires. In his prefactory note to this novel, Conrad said, "When this novel first appeared in book form a notion got about that I had been bolted away with. Some reviewers maintained that the work starting as a short story had got beyond the writer's control. One or two discovered internal evidence of the fact, which seemed to amuse them. They pointed out the limitations of the narrative form. They argued that no man could have been expected to talk all that time, and other men to listen so long. It was not, they said, very credible. After thinking it over for something like sixteen years, I am not so sure about that. Men have been known, both in the tropics and in the temperate zone, to sit up half the night 'swapping yarns.' This, however, is but one yarn, yet with interruptions affording some measure of relief. . . ."

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.