An Outcast of the Islands

Peter Willems has ruined himself through petty dishonesty when Captain Lingard, the old trader who once took him in, offers a second chance at a remote settlement on the Malay coast. Instead of gratitude, Willems falls into a consuming obsession with Aissa, the daughter of a local leader, and lets that passion drag him toward betrayal of the man who saved him. Joseph Conrad’s second novel studies weakness and self-deception with an unsparing eye, set against the rivers and forests of the East Indies he knew as a sailor. Though it comes early in his career, it already shows the moral seriousness and dense, atmospheric prose that would define his major work. Free to download as a PDF and EPUB edition.