End of the Tether

The End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad demonstrates again his mastery of prose fiction forms. In this case Conrad has written a novella about a sea captain named Whalley who has had a financial disaster at the end of a distinguished career. All he wants is to leave his only daughter some money to help her deal with her unsuccessful marriage, so he invests his last 500 pounds in an old steamer owned by its chief engineer, a man named Massy, and serves as its captain on local runs through what can be called Conrad country, the innumerable islands of Indonesia.