"Youth" is an 1898 autobiographical short story by
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in t ...
published in ''
Blackwood's Magazine
''Blackwood's Magazine'' was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by the publisher William Blackwood and was originally called the ''Edinburgh Monthly Magazine''. The first number appeared in April 1817 ...
'', and then included as the first story in Conrad's 1902 volume ''Youth, a Narrative, and Two Other Stories''. This volume also includes ''
Heart of Darkness
''Heart of Darkness'' (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad in which the sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgian company in the African interior. The novel ...
'' and ''The End of the Tether'', stories concerned with the themes of maturity and old age, respectively. "Youth" depicts a young man's first journey to the East. It is narrated by
Charles Marlow
Charles Marlow is a fictional English seaman and recurring character in the work of novelist Joseph Conrad.
Role of Marlow in novels by Conrad
Marlow narrates several of Conrad's best-known works such as the novels ''Lord Jim'' (1900) and '' C ...
who is also the narrator of ''
Lord Jim
''Lord Jim'' is a novel by Joseph Conrad originally published as a serial in ''Blackwood's Magazine'' from October 1899 to November 1900. An early and primary event in the story is the abandonment of a passenger ship in distress by its crew, ...
'', ''
Chance
Chance may refer to:
Mathematics and Science
* In mathematics, likelihood of something (by way of the Likelihood function and/or Probability density function).
* ''Chance'' (statistics magazine)
Places
* Chance, Kentucky, US
* Chance, Mary ...
'', and ''Heart of Darkness''. The narrator's introduction suggests this is the first time, chronologically, the character Marlow appears in Conrad's works (the narrator comments that he thinks Marlow spells his name this way).
Plot
Similar to Joseph Conrad's better-known ''
Heart of Darkness
''Heart of Darkness'' (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad in which the sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgian company in the African interior. The novel ...
'', ''Youth'' begins with a narrator describing five men drinking
claret
Bordeaux wine ( oc, vin de Bordèu, french: vin de Bordeaux) is produced in the Bordeaux region of southwest France, around the city of Bordeaux, on the Garonne River. To the north of the city the Dordogne River joins the Garonne forming the ...
around a mahogany table. They are all veterans of the merchant navy. One of the men, Marlow speaks of his first voyage to the East as second mate on board the ''Judea''. The story is set twenty-two years earlier, when Marlow was 20. With two years of experience, most recently as third mate aboard a crack clipper, Marlow receives a billet as second mate on the
barque
A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts having the fore- and mainmasts rigged square and only the mizzen (the aftmost mast) rigged fore and aft. Sometimes, the mizzen is only partly fore-and-aft rigged, b ...
''Judea''. The skipper is Captain John Beard, a man of about 60. This is Beard's first command. The ''Judea'' is an old boat, belonging to a man "Wilmer, Wilcox or something similar", suffering from age and disuse in
Shadewell basin. The 400-ton ship is commissioned to take 600 tons of coal from England to Thailand. The trip should take approximately 150 days. The ship leaves London loaded with sand ballast and heads north to the Senn river to pick up the cargo of coal. On her way, the ''Judea'' suffers from her ballast shifting aside and the crew go below to put things right again. The trip takes 16 days because of 'the famous October gale of twenty-two years ago', and the battered ship must use a tug boat to get into port. The ''Judea'' waits a month on the
Tyne to be loaded with coal. The night before she ships out she is hit by a steamer, the ''Miranda'' or the ''Melissa''. The damage takes another three weeks to repair. Three months after leaving London, the ''Judea'' ships off for
Bangkok
Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estima ...
.
The ''Judea'' travels through the
North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...
and Britain. 300 miles west of
the Lizard
The Lizard ( kw, An Lysardh) is a peninsula in southern Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The most southerly point of the British mainland is near Lizard Point at SW 701115; Lizard village, also known as The Lizard, is the most southerl ...
a fiery winter storm hits. The storm "guts" the ''Judea''; she is stripped of her stanchions, ventilators, bulwarks, cabin-door, and deck house. The oakum is stripped from her bottom seams and the men are forced to work at the pumps "watch and watch" to keep the ship afloat. After weathering the storm they must fight their way against the wind back to
Falmouth to be refitted. Despite three attempts to leave, the ''Judea'' ultimately remains in Falmouth for more than six months until she is finally overhauled, recaulked, and refitted with new copper hull sheathing. During the laborious overhaul, the cargo is wetted, knocked about, and reloaded multiple times. The rats abandon the reshipped barque and a new crew is brought in from Liverpool (because no sailor will sail on a ship abandoned by rats).
The ''Judea'' ships out to Bangkok, running at times 8 knots, but mostly averaging 3 miles per hour. Near the coast of Western Australia, the cargo spontaneously combusts. The crew attempts to smother the fire, but the hull cannot be made airtight. Then they attempt to flood the fire with water, but they cannot fill the hull. One hundred and ninety miles out from Java Head, the gases in the hull explode and blow up the deck; Marlow is hurled into the air and falls on the burning debris of the deck. The ''Judea'' hails a passing steamer, the ''Sommerville'', which agrees to tow the wounded ship to
Anjer or
Batavia
Batavia may refer to:
Historical places
* Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands
* Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...
. Captain Beard intends to scuttle the ''Judea'' there to put out the fire, and then resurface her and resume the voyage to Bangkok. However, the speed of the ''Sommerville'' fans the smoldering fire into flames. The crew of the ''Judea'' is forced to send the steamer on without them while they attempt to save possibly most of the ship's gear for the underwriters. The gear is loaded into three small boats, which head due north towards
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
. Before the crew leaves the ''Judea'', they enjoy a last meal on deck. Marlow becomes skipper of the smallest of the ship's three boats. All the boats make it safely into a Java port, where they book passage on the steamer ''Celestial'', which is on her return trip to England.
The story is loosely based upon reality. One of Conrad's pen-pals, or friends, discovered the secret of the port at which the boats called: the port was
Muntok
Muntok () or, more commonly, Mentok is a town in the Indonesian province of Bangka-Belitung on the island of Sumatra. The capital of West Bangka Regency (''Bangka Barat''), it is the site of the biggest tin smelter on the world. Mentok refers to ...
. Conrad became angry with him, calling Muntok 'a beastly hole'. The boats of the real ship reached the safety only after several hours, Marlow was a bit younger than Conrad, etc.
Publication history
![Houghton EC9 C7638 902y (A) - Conrad, title](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Houghton_EC9_C7638_902y_%28A%29_-_Conrad%2C_title.jpg)
1898 (probably May) – Conrad begins writing "Youth"
3 June 1898 – Conrad finishes writing "Youth"
September 1898 – "Youth" is first published in ''
Blackwood's Magazine
''Blackwood's Magazine'' was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by the publisher William Blackwood and was originally called the ''Edinburgh Monthly Magazine''. The first number appeared in April 1817 ...
''
13 November 1902 – the book volume ''Youth: a Narrative, and Two Other Stories'' is published by
William Blackwood
William Blackwood (20 November 177616 September 1834) was a Scottish publisher who founded the firm of William Blackwood and Sons.
Life
Blackwood was born in Edinburgh on 20 November 1776. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a firm of book ...
– also contained the stories "Heart of Darkness" and "The End of the Tether"
1903 – First American edition was published by McClure, Phillips
1917 – Second British edition was published by J. M. Dent
1921 – William Heinemann brought out Youth: A Narrative; and The End of a Tether as part of a limited British edition of the collected works
1923 – published by Doubleday in America, and Dent in Britain as part of the first general collected 'editions'
Original forms that are still in existence
*An incomplete manuscript
*A section of typescript
*The Blackwood's Magazine
Adaptions and works influenced
*''
The Young One
''The Young One'' ( es, La joven) (released as ''White Trash'' in the United States and ''Island of Shame'' in the United Kingdom) is a 1960 English-language Mexican drama film directed and co-written by Luis Buñuel, and starring Zachary Scott ...
'' – a film adaptation directed by Julien Samani
*Conrad's Youth plays a significant role in the life of the main hero of Graham Swift's 'Mothering Sunday'.
References
External links
Joseph Conrad's Chronology''Youth, a narrative; and two other stories'' available at
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
(original edition scanned books)
*
"Youth" available at
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg (PG) is a Virtual volunteering, volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks."
It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the ...
(computer generated audio)
"Youth" available at Project Gutenberg (plain text)
Maritime TerminologyMap of Thailand
{{Authority control
1898 short stories
Short stories by Joseph Conrad
Existentialist short stories
Frame stories
Works originally published in Blackwood's Magazine
William Blackwood books
Autobiographical short stories