Lord Jim

LORD JIM

BY

JOSEPH CONRAD

A PENN STATE ELECTRONIC CLASSICS SERIES PUBLICATION

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad is a publication of the Pennsylvania State University. This Portable Document file is furnished free and without any charge of any kind. Any person using this document file, for any purpose, and in any way does so at his or her own risk. Neither the Pennsylvania State University nor Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, nor anyone associated with the Pennsylvania State University assumes any responsibility for the material contained within the document or for the file as an electronic transmission, in any way. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad , the Pennsylvania State University, Electronic Classics Series, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA 18202 is a Portable Document File produced as part of an ongoing student publication project to bring classical works of literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them. Cover Design: Jim Manis

Copyright © 2005 The Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University is an equal opportunity university. Joseph Conrad

LORD JIM

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; and in regard BY

to the listeners’ endurance, the postulate must be accepted that the story was interesting. It is the necessary preliminary

JOSEPH CONRAD

assumption. If I hadn’t believed that it was interesting I could never have begun to write it. As to the mere physical possibility we al know that some speeches in Parliament have AUTHOR’S NOTE

taken nearer six than three hours in delivery; whereas al that part of the book which is Marlow’s narrative can be read through aloud, I should say, in less than three hours. BeWHEN THIS NOVEL first appeared in book form a notion got sides—though I have kept strictly al such insignificant deabout that I had been bolted away with. Some reviewers tails out of the tale—we may presume that there must have maintained that the work starting as a short story had got been refreshments on that night, a glass of mineral water of beyond the writer’s control. One or two discovered internal some sort to help the narrator on.

evidence of the fact, which seemed to amuse them. They But, seriously, the truth of the matter is, that my first pointed out the limitations of the narrative form. They arthought was of a short story, concerned only with the pilgued that no man could have been expected to talk al that grim ship episode; nothing more. And that was a legitimate time, and other men to listen so long. It was not, they said, conception. After writing a few pages, however, I became for very credible.

some reason discontented and I laid them aside for a time. I After thinking it over for something like sixteen years, I didn’t take them out of the drawer til the late Mr. Wil iam am not so sure about that. Men have been known, both in 3

Lord Jim

Blackwood suggested I should give something again to his had occasion to be puzzled and surprised. magazine.

A friend of mine returning from Italy had talked with a It was only then that I perceived that the pilgrim ship epilady there who did not like the book. I regretted that, of sode was a good starting-point for a free and wandering tale; course, but what surprised me was the ground of her dislike. that it was an event, too, which could conceivably colour the

‘You know,’ she said, ‘it is al so morbid.’

whole ‘sentiment of existence’ in a simple and sensitive charThe pronouncement gave me food for an hour’s anxious acter. But al these preliminary moods and stirrings of spirit thought. Final y I arrived at the conclusion that, making due were rather obscure at the time, and they do not appear clearer al owances for the subject itself being rather foreign to to me now after the lapse of so many years.