Joseph Conrad was born Josef Teodor Konrad Walecz Korzeniowski in a Russian-ruled province of Poland (now part of the Ukraine) on December 3, 1857. His father was a poet, a writer, and a political activist. His mother was also politically involved. As a result of his parents' participation in the Polish independence movement, young Conrad and his mother and father were forced into exile in Northern Russia in 1863. In the next five years, by the time Conrad was eleven, both his parents bad died and the boy bad been sent to live with various relatives. Conrad dropped out of school when he was sixteen and took up life on the sea. first joining the French merchant marines and sailing as apprentice and then steward to Martinique and the West Indies. At the age of twenty-one, Conrad joined a British ship, and served with the British merchant marines for...