Born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski on December 3, 1857 in Stolen Lands, Ukraine [then part of the Russian Empire, but once part of Poland] Joseph Conrad finally setted in England after living in Poland and France. On July 2,1886 he applied for British nationality, which was granted on August 19, 1886.Lord Jim was first published in the UK in 1900 by William Blackwood & Sons, having being serialised the previous year in ‘Blackwood’s Magazine’. There are many literary and film references to the novel. ‘Lord Jim’ is the name of a boat, and subsequently the nickname of the boat’s owner, Richard Blake, in Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald, winner of the Booker Prize in 1979. Read my review of Offshore.
In 1998, Lord Jim appeared at number 85 in American publisher Modern Library’s list of the One Hundred Best English Language Novels in the 20thCentury.
Penguin Classics current edition
The current Penguin Classics edition [above] dates from 2007.
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The story
An English boy in a simple town has dreams bigger than the outdoors and embarks at an early age into the sailor’s life. The waters he travels reward him with the ability to explore the human spirit, while Conrad launches the story into both an exercise of his technical prowess and a delicately crafted picture of a character who reaches the status of a literary hero.
Other editions
And my copy? It’s a Penguin Modern Classics edition [below] which I bought while at university in 1981.
Penguin Modern Classics 1985 – my copy
Films
Peter O’Toole [above] starred as Jim in the 1965 film, directed by Richard Brooks, with James Mason as Gentleman Brown. After being discredited as a coward, a 19th century seaman [O’Toole] lives for only one purpose: to redeem himself. 
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Lord Jim film poster 1925A silent film of Lord Jim released in 1925 [above] starred Percy Marmount as Jim.
If you like old books, check out these:-
‘The Sea, The Sea’ by Iris Murdoch
‘The Secret Garden’ by Frances Hodgson Burnett
‘The Moonstone’ by Wilkie Collins
And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
First Edition LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad #oldbooks #bookcovers https://wp.me/p5gEM4-42d via @SandraDanby
“He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging bull. His voice was deep, loud, and his manner displayed a kind of dogged self-assertion which had nothing aggressive in it. It seemed a necessity, and it was directed apparently as much at himself as at anybody else. He was spotlessly neat, apparelled in immaculate white from shoes to hat, and in the various Eastern ports where he got his living as ship-chandler’s water-clerk he was very popular.”
sandra danby 