The Secret Sharer | Author Biography

Joseph Conrad was born Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski on December 3, 1857, in Berdichev, Poland. Conrad's parents were exiled to Northern Russia in 1862 and both of them died before Conrad was eleven. He was then supported and raised by various relatives, including his maternal uncle, Tadeusz Bobrowski, a prosperous lawyer who provided financial aid until Conrad was in his thirties. Conrad received sporadic and irregular schooling and was often ill. He joined the British merchant marines in 1878 and traveled to Africa, Australia India and the Orient. These experiences would later aid and inform his writing. Due to poor health, Conrad was forced to retire from the merchant marines, and in 1894 he began a career as a writer. It was not until 1913, with the publication of Chance, that Conrad became an acclaimed writer.

Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad

Most of Conrad's stories were inspired by his experiences at sea: Lord Jim was a story that he had heard about the ship the Jeddah; The Nigger of the Narcissus was based on his adventures from Bombay to England; "The Secret Sharer" was taken from an actual incident aboard the Cutty Sark in 1880; and Heart of Darkness, Conrad's most famous work, is a fictional account of the author's own experience in the Belgian Congo. On August 3, 1924 Joseph Conrad died at the age of 66 and was buried in Canterbury, England.