The shadow line

“Only the young have such moments,” begins Joseph Conrad’s most personal and poignant tale of the sea. An impulsive resignation from a comfortable ship leaves a young seaman adrift in an Eastern port, restless and filled with “the subtle and desolating fear of irreparable loss.” His unexpected appointment as captain of a sailing vessel offers the redemption he craves—a command of his own and the definitive crossing of the shadow line that separates youth from maturity.
But his ship is cursed. Moored in the windless Gulf of Siam, his crew is struck down by fever, and his enigmatic predecessor has left behind a legacy of chaos and a missing supply of quinine. With a first mate driven to the brink of superstition and a ship that refuses to catch the breeze, the young captain must confront a trial far greater than any storm: the slow, creeping paralysis of a vessel becalmed both physically and spiritually.
Based closely on Conrad’s own first command, The Shadow-Line is a profound and austere masterpiece. More than a sea story, it is a universal rite of passage—a haunting meditation on responsibility, isolation, and the grim perseverance required to shepherd a crew, a ship, and one’s own soul through the still, fevered waters of crisis.