Lord Jim

Lord Jim

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad (#26 in
our series by Joseph Conrad)
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: Lord Jim
Author: Joseph Conrad

Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5658] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on August 5, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LORD JIM
***

This eBook was produced by Forrest Wasserman, [email protected]

LORD JIM
BY JOSEPH CONRAD

AUTHOR'S NOTE
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;
and in regard to the listeners' endurance, the postulate must be accepted
that the story was interesting. It is the necessary preliminary

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 all know
that some speeches in Parliament have taken nearer six than three hours
in delivery; whereas all that part of the book which is Marlow's
narrative can be read through aloud, I should say, in less than three
hours. Besides--though I have kept strictly all such insignificant details
out of the tale--we may presume that there must have been
refreshments on that night, a glass of mineral water of some sort to help
the narrator on.
But, seriously, the truth of the matter is, that my first thought was of a
short story, concerned only with the pilgrim ship episode; nothing more.
And that was a legitimate conception. After writing a few pages,
however, I became for some reason discontented and I laid them aside
for a time. I didn't take them out of the drawer till the late Mr. William
Blackwood suggested I should give something again to his magazine.
It was only then that I perceived that the pilgrim ship episode was a
good starting-point for a free and wandering tale; that it was an event,
too, which could conceivably colour the whole 'sentiment of existence'
in a simple and sensitive character. But all these preliminary moods and
stirrings of spirit were rather obscure at the time, and they do not
appear clearer to me now after the lapse of so many years.
The few pages I had laid aside were not without their weight in the
choice of subject. But the whole was re-written deliberately. When I sat
down to it I knew it would be a long book, though I didn't foresee that
it would spread itself over thirteen numbers of Maga.
I have been asked at times whether this was not the book of mine I
liked best. I am a great foe to favouritism in public life, in private life,
and even in the delicate relationship of an author to his works. As a
matter of principle I will have no favourites; but I don't go so far as to
feel grieved and annoyed by the preference some people give to my
Lord Jim. I won't even say that I 'fail to understand . . .' No! But once I
had occasion to be puzzled and surprised.
A friend of mine returning from Italy had talked with a lady there who

did