
                                 Joseph Conrad

                                Lord Jim. A Tale

It is certain my conviction gains infinitely,
the moment another soul will believe in it.
                                                                        NOVALIS.
 

    To Mr. and Mrs. G.F.W. Hope with grateful affection after many years of
                                   friendship

                                 Author's Note

When this novel first appeared in book form a notion got about that I had been
bolted away with. Some reviewers maintained that the work starting as a short
story had got beyond the writer's control. One or two discovered internal
evidence of the fact, which seemed to amuse them. They pointed out the
limitations of the narrative form. They argued that no man could have been
expected to talk all that time, and other men to listen so long. It was not,
they said, very credible.
    After thinking it over for something like sixteen years, I am not so sure
about that. Men have been known, both in the tropics and in the temperate zone,
to sit up half the night swapping yarns. This, however, is but one yarn, yet
with interruptions affording some measure of relief; and in regard to the
listeners' endurance, the postulate must be accepted that the story was
interesting. It is the necessary preliminary assumption. If I hadn't believed
that it was interesting I could never have begun to write it. As to the mere
physical possibility, we all know that some speeches in Parliament have taken
nearer six than three hours in delivery; whereas all that part of the book which
is Marlow's narrative can be read through aloud, I should say, in less than
three hours. Besides - though I have kept strictly all such insignificant
details out of the tale - we may presume that there must have been refreshments
on that night, a glass of mineral water of some sort to help the narrator on.
    But, seriously, the truth of the matter is, that my first thought was of a
short story, concerned only with the pilgrim ship episode; nothing more. And
that was a legitimate conception. After writing a few pages, however, I became
for some reason discontented and I laid them aside for a time. I didn't take
them out of the drawer till the late Mr. William Blackwood suggested I should
give something again to his magazine.
    It was only then that I perceived that the pilgrim ship episode was a good
starting-point for a free and wandering tale; that it was an event, too, which
could conceivably colour the whole sentiment of existence in a simple and
sensitive character. But all these preliminary moods and stirrings of spirit
