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Joseph Conrad was born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in 1857, in a Polish family living under Russian rule in what is now Ukraine. He grew up speaking Polish and French, joined the British merchant marine in 1878 at about twenty, and only then began to learn English properly. He spent the next fifteen years in ships, from apprentice to his only command, the barque Otago, in 1888–89, and in 1890 took a job on a river steamer in the Congo. In 1895, a year after leaving the sea, he published his first novel, in his third language. This guide covers his 12 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 12 key books · 1895–1923 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Joseph Conrad published 13 completed novels, seven collections of stories and two memoirs. His best-known books are Heart of Darkness (1899), Lord Jim (1900), Nostromo (1904) and The Secret Agent (1907). Start with Heart of Darkness: it is short, it draws on his own journey up the Congo in 1890, and much of what was later written about him starts from it.
Where to Start with Joseph Conrad
If you want his most famous book
→ Heart of Darkness (1899) — a short novel, read in an evening.
If you want a full novel of the sea and conscience
→ Lord Jim (1900).
If you want politics and a city
→ The Secret Agent (1907) — anarchists and police in 1880s London.
If you want his largest novel
→ Nostromo (1904) — a whole invented South American republic.
12 Joseph Conrad Books, in Order
Almayer’s Folly
His first novel, and the first book published under the name Joseph Conrad. Kaspar Almayer, a Dutch trader stranded in a river settlement in Borneo, dreams of finding gold and taking his daughter Nina to Europe; Nina chooses the Malay prince Dain Maroola instead. Chantal Akerman filmed it in 2011 as La Folie Almayer.
An Outcast of the Islands
Set earlier in the same place as Almayer’s Folly. Peter Willems, a clerk disgraced for theft, is taken up the river by the trader Captain Tom Lingard, and betrays Lingard’s secret trade route for the love of Aïssa. With The Rescue it makes up his three novels about Lingard.
Heart of Darkness
On a yacht moored in the Thames, the sailor Marlow tells how he took a steamer up an African river for a Belgian trading company to fetch Kurtz, its most successful ivory agent. It draws on Conrad’s own Congo journey of 1890. Serialised in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1899, it appeared as a book in Youth (1902). Francis Ford Coppola moved the story to the Vietnam War in Apocalypse Now (1979); Chinua Achebe’s 1975 lecture attacking it as racist made it one of the most argued-over books in English.
Lord Jim
Jim, a young English officer on the pilgrim ship Patna, jumps overboard in the belief that she is sinking; she does not sink, and the inquiry ends his career. Marlow, who narrates much of it, follows Jim to Patusan, a remote settlement where he becomes “Tuan Jim”. Richard Brooks filmed it in 1965 with Peter O’Toole.
Nostromo
Costaguana, an invented South American republic, and its port of Sulaco, where the English-born Charles Gould runs the San Tomé silver mine. When revolution comes, the Italian foreman of the docks, Nostromo, is trusted to hide a lighter full of silver. His longest and most complicated novel; the BBC adapted it in 1996 with Colin Firth and Albert Finney.
The Secret Agent
In 1880s London, Adolf Verloc keeps a shop in Soho and spies for a foreign embassy, which orders him to bomb the Greenwich Observatory. The bomb kills his wife Winnie’s young brother Stevie, with consequences for Verloc. It draws on a real explosion near the Observatory in 1894. Alfred Hitchcock adapted it loosely as Sabotage (1936).
Under Western Eyes
In St Petersburg the student Razumov is visited by a fellow student, Haldin, who has just assassinated a government minister, and gives him up to the police. Sent to spy on revolutionary exiles in Geneva, he meets Haldin’s sister. The story is told by an elderly English teacher of languages, the “western eyes” of the title.
Chance
Marlow pieces together the story of Flora de Barral, daughter of a financier jailed for fraud, and her marriage to the sea captain Roderick Anthony. After almost two decades of respect from critics and small sales, it was his first real popular success.
Victory
Axel Heyst, a Swede who has withdrawn from the world to a small island, rescues Lena, a young Englishwoman playing in a travelling ladies’ orchestra, and takes her there. Three criminals, led by the man who calls himself Mr Jones, follow, believing Heyst is hiding money. It has been filmed several times, including a 1990s version with Willem Dafoe.
The Shadow-Line
A young officer is given his first command, a ship whose last captain has died; becalmed in the Gulf of Siam with the crew sick with fever and the quinine gone, he has to bring her through. It draws on Conrad’s own first command, the Otago, in 1888, and was published during the First World War, in which his son Borys was serving.
The Rescue
The young Tom Lingard, of An Outcast of the Islands, is drawn into the trouble of an English yacht run aground in the shallows of the archipelago, and into his feelings for Mrs Travers, the owner’s wife. Conrad began it in 1896, put it aside for years and finished it in 1920.
The Rover
His last completed novel. Peyrol, an old gunner who has spent his life at sea, partly as a pirate, comes home to a farm on the coast near Toulon during the wars with Britain, and is drawn into one last mission against the English fleet.
In What Order to Read Joseph Conrad
Only one thread runs across books: Captain Tom Lingard appears in Almayer’s Folly, An Outcast of the Islands and The Rescue. In story order that is The Rescue first and Almayer’s Folly last, the reverse of the order he wrote them. Marlow narrates “Youth”, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim and Chance, but each stands alone.
Most readers start with Heart of Darkness, then go to Lord Jim and The Secret Agent. Leave Nostromo until you are used to his habit of telling a story out of order; it is the longest and the hardest to get into.
A reading path
1. Heart of Darkness (1899)
2. The Shadow-Line (1917)
3. Lord Jim (1900)
4. The Secret Agent (1907)
5. Nostromo (1904)
Everything Else Joseph Conrad Published
Beyond the 12 key books: 17 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Other novels
3
3 books · 1897–1925
- 1897The Children of the Seaa ship’s crew and a dying sailor; US title of the novel whose British title uses a racial slur
- 1919The Arrow of Goldgun-running for the Carlists in Marseille
- 1925Suspenseunfinished Napoleonic novel, published after his death
Story collections
7
7 books · 1898–1925
- 1898Tales of Unrestincludes “An Outpost of Progress” and “The Lagoon”
- 1902Youth“Youth”, Heart of Darkness and “The End of the Tether”
- 1903Typhoon and Other Storiesincludes “Typhoon”, “Amy Foster” and “Falk”
- 1908A Set of Sixincludes “The Duel”, filmed as The Duellists (1977)
- 1912‘Twixt Land and Seaincludes “The Secret Sharer”
- 1915Within the Tidesfour stories
- 1925Tales of Hearsayposthumous collection
With Ford Madox Ford
3
3 books · 1901–1909
- 1901The Inheritorsco-written novel
- 1903Romanceco-written adventure novel
- 1909The Nature of a Crimeco-written novella
Memoirs and essays
4
4 books · 1906–1926
- 1906The Mirror of the Seamemories of ships and the sea
- 1912A Personal Recordmemoir, also published as Some Reminiscences
- 1921Notes on Life and Lettersessays
- 1926Last Essaysposthumous collection of essays
The years · 1857–1924
Quick facts about Joseph Conrad
- Known for
- Joseph Conrad is known for novels of the sea, empire and political violence, written in English, his third language, after fifteen years as a merchant seaman.
- 1857
- Born in Berdychiv, now Ukraine
- 1878
- Joins the British merchant marine
- 1890
- Steamer job in the Congo
- 1913
- Chance brings popular success
- 1924
- Dies at Bishopsbourne, Kent
- Born
- 3 December 1857, Berdychiv, Russian Empire (now Ukraine)
- Birth name
- Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski
- At sea
- British merchant marine 1878–1894; only command the barque Otago, 1888–89
- Nationality
- Polish by birth; British subject from 1886
- Married
- Jessie George, 24 March 1896
- Honours
- Declined a knighthood in 1924
- Died
- 3 August 1924, Bishopsbourne, Kent; buried in Canterbury
The red mark is 1899: Heart of Darkness, serialised that year in Blackwood’s Magazine.
How Joseph Conrad Writes: Seeing It Through Someone Else
Conrad rarely tells a story straight. In Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim and Chance an unnamed listener reports what the sailor Marlow tells a group of friends, and Marlow in turn reports what others told him; Under Western Eyes is filtered through an English teacher who admits he does not understand Russians. The reader gets the events second- or third-hand and has to judge the tellers as well.
He also moves back and forth in time. Lord Jim begins after the Patna inquiry and circles back to the jump; Nostromo shows the revolution in Sulaco from several dates and points of view before you know how it ends. His aim, as he put it in the preface to his 1897 novel of the sea, was above all “to make you see”: weather, ships and faces in close physical detail.
Most of the material is his own: Borneo trading posts he had called at as a mate, the Congo river in 1890, his first command in the Gulf of Siam. His English, learnt as an adult, is formal and dense with abstract words; readers since Virginia Woolf and F. R. Leavis have argued over whether that density is his strength or his weakness.
Frequently asked questions about Joseph Conrad’s books
How many books has Joseph Conrad written?
About thirty. He completed 13 novels on his own, left a 14th, Suspense, unfinished, co-wrote three books with Ford Madox Ford, and published seven collections of stories and several books of memoirs and essays. This page covers his 12 key books in detail.
What are Joseph Conrad’s books in order?
Almayer’s Folly (1895), An Outcast of the Islands (1896), Heart of Darkness (1899), Lord Jim (1900), Nostromo (1904), The Secret Agent (1907), Under Western Eyes (1911), Chance (1913), Victory (1915), The Shadow-Line (1917), The Rescue (1920) and The Rover (1923). The other novels, stories and memoirs are listed above.
Where should I start with Joseph Conrad?
With Heart of Darkness. It is short, it is the book most of the writing about him starts from, and it shows his method: Marlow telling a story to friends. Then try Lord Jim or The Secret Agent.
What is Joseph Conrad’s most famous book?
Heart of Darkness, serialised in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1899 and published as a book in Youth (1902). Of the full-length novels, Lord Jim (1900) and Nostromo (1904) are the best known.
Was English Joseph Conrad’s first language?
No. He grew up speaking Polish and French, and began to learn English only around the time he joined the British merchant marine in 1878, at about twenty. He wrote all his books in English, his third language.
Is Apocalypse Now based on Heart of Darkness?
Yes, loosely. Francis Ford Coppola’s film (1979) moves the story from the Congo to the Vietnam War: Captain Willard travels upriver to find Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando. Other films from his books include Hitchcock’s Sabotage (1936, from The Secret Agent), Lord Jim (1965) and Ridley Scott’s The Duellists (1977, from the story “The Duel”).
Is Heart of Darkness racist?
It has been argued for fifty years. In a lecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in February 1975, “An Image of Africa”, the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe said the book denies Africans their humanity and called Conrad a racist; the revised text, published in 1988, uses the phrase “a thoroughgoing racist”. Other critics read the book as an attack on Belgian colonialism. It is still widely taught, often alongside Achebe’s essay.
Did Joseph Conrad really go to the Congo?
Yes. In 1890 he took a job with a Belgian trading company on a river steamer on the Congo, and left Africa at the end of that year, ill. He kept a diary of part of the journey, published after his death.
Did Joseph Conrad win any prizes?
He won no major literary prize. He received a civil list pension from the British government in 1910 and declined a knighthood in 1924, a few months before his death on 3 August 1924.
Footnotes
- Joseph Conrad — Wikipedia
- Author: Joseph Conrad — Wikisource
- Joseph Conrad: a chronology — The Victorian Web
- An Image of Africa — Wikipedia
- Conrad’s 1897 novel and preface — Project Gutenberg
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see.”
— Joseph Conrad, preface to The Children of the Sea (1897)
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