The Shadow-Line

This 1928 edition presents Joseph Conrad's *The Shadow-Line: A Confession*, a psychological novella about early adulthood. The narrative follows an unnamed protagonist who impulsively abandons his satisfying position aboard an Eastern-trade steamship owned by a Syed Arab merchant. Despite contentment with his ship, crew of Kalashes and Malay officers, and three fellow white officers, the narrator experiences sudden, inexplicable dissatisfaction characteristic of late youth—what he terms "the green sickness." His captain understands with quiet sympathy; his second engineer, the Scot John Nieven, responds with bitter mockery about romantic entanglement; the dyspeptic chief engineer suggests liver trouble. Unsure what "truth" he seeks, the narrator leaves in a rash moment he later recognizes as caprice. Conrad's prefatory note emphasizes the story's realism—not supernatural despite some critical misinterpretation—treating the psychological effects of moral shock rather than the supernatural, drawing from his own maritime experience commanding his first ship.