A young Englishman is the vessel's first mate. Britain’s vast overseas empire connected the world through trade routes to a greater extent than ever before (as shown in the diverse nationalities of the characters in Lord Jim), but exploitative colonialist policies had a devastating impact on residents of colonized lands, as Lord Jim and several of Conrad’s other works show.This story opens on a ship crowded with pilgrims traveling from Singapore to Mecca for the hajj. More broadly, Lord Jim was influenced by the rise of the British Empire, which was nearing its peak at the time the novel was published. The mate of the Jeddah even tried to avoid the scandal by starting a new life for himself working for a chandler in Singapore, similar to what Jim does in the novel.

Like the Patna of Lord Jim, the SS Jeddah, too, had nearly 800 Muslim passengers going on a pilgrimage who were abandoned by the captain and officers on the ship once the ship began taking on water-only for the ship to survive without sinking. In addition to being inspired by Joseph Conrad’s own career as a merchant marine, Lord Jim may have been inspired by a real-life incident involving a ship called the SS Jeddah.

When he died in 1924, he was one of the most famous writers in the world, and his works remain widely read and adapted. Conrad wrote several other novels and shorts stories, and in general, his works were very well-received, earning praise from critics and other writers of the time.

He published his first novel, Almayer’s Folly, in 1895, but he is perhaps best known for the short novel Heart of Darkness (1899), followed closely by Lord Jim (1900). Compared to many writers, Conrad began his career later in life, not even becoming fluent in English until his early twenties. Eventually, he joined the merchant marines, first for France, then eventually for Britain, which became his home for most of his adult life. Both of Conrad’s parents died of tuberculosis by the time he was 11, and he lived for a while with an uncle, then at a boarding school. Conrad’s family, particularly his father, was politically active, with a strong interest in Polish patriotism and reclaiming former Polish land from Russia. Joseph Conrad was born in Berdychiv, a region that was part of Poland before he was born, was part of Russia at the time he was born, and is today part of Ukraine.

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