An Outcast of the Islands was only Conrad’s second novel, but in its theme, in its impressionistic use of scenery, and, and over all, in the enormous richness and power of the writing, it predicts Conrad’s position as a literary figure of the highest rank.
Peter Willems, a clerk in Macassar, granted a “second chance” at a remote river trading post, falls ever more hopelessly into traps set by himself and others. A parable of human frailty, with love and death the major players, this is a story of a man unable to understand others and fated never to possess his own soul.



An Outcast of the Islands

Joseph Conrad’s first novel Almayer’s Folly is a tale of personal tragedy as well as a broader meditation on the evils of colonialism.
Set in the lush jungle of Borneo in the late 1800s, it tells of the Dutch merchant Kaspar Almayer, whose dreams of riches for his beloved daughter, Nina, collapse under the weight of his own greed and prejudice. Conrad established in Almayer’s Folly the themes of betrayal, isolation, and colonialism that he would explore throughout the rest of his life and work.



The Lingard Trilogy