Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad, born Józef Korzeniowski to Polish parents in the Russian Empire, spent about twenty years as a merchant seaman, mostly on British ships, learning English as his third language in his twenties. He settled in England, published his first novel, Almayer's Folly, in 1895, and wrote Heart of Darkness and Nostromo in a language he once said he never fully mastered. His sea years supplied most of his material.