Polish heritage -- Polish childhood, 1857-1874 -- Marseilles and the Carlists, 1874-1878 -- English sailor, 1878-1886 -- From second mate to master, 1880-1886 -- Eastern voyages, 1886-1889 -- Into the Congo, 1890 -- Sailor to writer, 1891-1894 -- Courtship and marriage, 1894-1896 -- Literary friendships and artistic breakthrough, 1897-1898 -- Ford and Pent Farm, 1898-1902 -- J.B. Pinker and Nostromo, 1901-1904 -- Capri, Montipellier and The Secret Agent, 1905-1909 -- Breakdown and success, 1910-1913 -- Return to Poland and Victory, 1914-1915 -- Jane Anderson, 1916-1917 -- War years, 1916-1918 -- Fame and America, 1919-1924 -- Appendixes: Later life of Jane Anderson, 1918-1947; Quest for Jane Anderson.;[This book] presents the contradictory, tormented life of Joseph Conard (1857-1924). [In the book, the author] recounts Conrad's extraordinary life: a Polish exile in England who wrote brilliantly in English, but who had difficulty being understood when he spoke it; a seafaring man who romanticized the ocean in his fiction yet hated it in reality; a writer who suffered neglect thought most of his career, yet exhausted himself in the service of his art. [The author] offers astute interpretations of Conard's work and of his friendships with H.G. Wells, Stephen Crane, Ford Maddox Ford, and Andre Gide as well as the fullest treatment anywhere of his affair with Jane Anderson, an American journalist-turned-traitor who powerfully affected Conard.-Back cover.