Joseph Conrad wrote a novella titled The End of the Tether in 1902. It was compiled and published by William Blackwood in Youth, a Narrative and Two Other Stories in 1902. Youth and Heart of Darkness were the other two tales in the collection. The protagonist of the tale is Henry Whalley, a widowed merchant service captain who was once known as the daredevil Harry Whalley, captain of the clipper Condor. He had been saving all of his life, but a banking collapse had cost him virtually everything. He had barely enough money left over to buy the Fair Maid as a bark "to play with" in his retirement. The event that shifts Whalley's trajectory is a letter from his daughter asking for financial assistance. In order to maintain himself and protect his remaining capital, he sells his ship, sends his daughter the needed amount of money, and forms a partnership with Massy, a man about whom he harbors grave concerns. He is now a stockholder and captain of the ship Sofala according to the agreement with Massy. Massy won the lottery when he bought the Sofala, and now that he's in debt, he's hoping for more good fortune.
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist, considered as one of the prominent novelists to write in the English language. He was born on 3 December 1857. Though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he came to be considered a master prose stylist who guide a non-English sensibility into English literature. He was assigned British nationality in 1886 but always regarded himself a Pole. He enrolled the French Merchant Marine and began to work on British ships, learning English from his shipmates. He was made a master mariner and worked more than sixteen years before an event motivated him to try his hand at writing. He wrote stories and novels, many with a nautical setting, that represents trials of the human spirit in the middle of an unexpressive, transparent universe. During his lifetime Conrad was praised for the assets of his prose and his offerings of dangerous life at sea and in foreign places. His works include the novels Almayer's Folly (1895), Lord Jim (1900), Nostromo (1904), and The Secret Agent (1907) and the short story 'Heart of Darkness ' (1902). He died in August 1924.
