John Rooney - All at Sea

Few people have led a more colourful or dramatic life than Joseph Conrad. Orphaned by the age of 11, he went on to be regarded as one of our literary greats and was a forerunner to many of the Modernist writers, including James Joyce and D H Lawrence. However, this was not before he spent 20 years sailing the worlds vast oceans. His works have inspired such great authors as Virginia Woolf, John Le Carre and Grahame Greene.

Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski was born on 3rd December 1857 in the Ukrainian town Berdyczow; his parents were members of the szlachta - the Polish aristocracy - and opposed to the Russian regime which, between 1772 and 1795, saw much of their beloved Poland practically wiped from the map of Europe in a succession of partitions.

In 1861, Joseph's father Apollo was arrested and the following year he and his wife Ewelina, accompanied by four - year - old Joseph, were exiled to Vologda, about 300 miles north of Moscow. In the cold climate and within seven years, tuberculosis claimed the lives of both Ewelina and Apollo, leaving him an orphan.

His maternal uncle, Tadeusz Bobrowski became his guardian and he spent the next five years in Krakow. For many years young Joseph had yearned for a life afloat and in 1874, at the age of just sixteen, he made the long journey to Marseille, where he joined the French merchant navy.

A year later he set sail on board the Mont - Blanc. The following year he served as steward on the Saint - Antoine. It was during these early years as a sailor that Conrad claimed to have become involved in gun - running for Colombian conservatives and Spanish legitimists.

A total of 20 years at sea provided the inspiration for several of his later works, including Heart of Darkness. A short story in 1902, based on an expedition into the Congo Free State, was the inspiration for the Francis Ford Coppola film, Apocalypse Now.

As a Russian citizen he required permission from the Russian consul to serve on French ships. With imperial military service looming, permission may not have been granted to him. Add to that the debts he acquired in the casinos of Monte Carlo, and suicide must have seemed like a way out - in 1878 he tried to shoot himself, but fortunately only managed to wound himself in the chest.

That same year he travelled to England and joined the British Mercantile Marine, where he spent the next 16 years afloat. In 1883, while serving on the Palestine he was shipwrecked, recalling the adventure in his story Youth. He rose through the ranks quickly, securing his masters certificate in 1886, the year he acquired British citizenship.

Two years later Conrad took command of the British ship Otago - his short story The Shadow Line and The Secret Sharer are both based on his time as captain, when he sailed between Melbourne, Mauritius and Bangkok. In 1894 his career on the oceans came to an end, for sail was giving way to steam and in the transition, Conrad found it difficult to secure employment.

In February of that year his uncle Tadeusz passed away, leaving him a large sum of money that aided his shift of career from mariner to writer. In 1895 his first novel, Almayer's Folly, was published in English - no small feat, considering that it was only his third language; he started to learn in his early 20s.

The novel, set in the jungles of Borneo, tells the story of Kaspar Almayer, a Dutch Trader, his loveless marriage and his regression into insanity. It received mixed, though mostly good reviews, setting him on his way to release An Outcast of the Islands the following year.

In March of that year (1896) Conrad married an English woman, Jessie Emmeline George; they had two sons Borys and John. In the years that followed, his writing continued to flourish, and he produced works such as Lord Jim (1900), Typhoon (1902), The Secret Agent (1907) and Under Western Eyes (1911).

But it was not until 1913, with the release of Chance, that he achieved financial success. With the it's background once again the sea, it tells of Flora de Barral, her father, an unscrupulous, convicted financier and her marriage to Captain Anthony.

This led to many of his earlier works being reprinted. In his later years, Conrad continued to produce novels including The Shadow Line (1917) and The Rover (1923), though none of these were regarded as highly as his earlier work. A Personal Record, his autobiography, was first published in book form in 1912.

Shortly before the writer's death on 3rd August 1924, Ramsay Mac Donald, Britain's first Labour prime minister, offered him a knighthood, which he politely declined. Following his death, Tales of Hearsay, Last Essay's and the unfinished Suspense were released. Interest in his work decreased in the 1930s, but following the Second World War, and due in part to the acclaim given to Conrad in F R Leavis' The Great Tradition (1948), his work received the academic and critical admiration it deserved.

Joseph Conrad left behind a legacy that we can still enjoy today. Along with film adaptations, his writings have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Korean and Swahili - proving that he achieved much in his 64 years.