Nostromo : A Tale of the Seaboard

"In 1875 or '76, when very young, in the Gulf of Mexico, I heard the story of some man who was supposed to have stolen single-handed a whole lighter full of silver, somewhere on the Tierra Firme seaboard during the troubles of a revolution." From these slim details Conrad builds one of the great novels of our language and creates one of its most enigmatic central characters: Nostromo.