Joseph Conrad, the author who wrote Lord Jim, died August 3, 1924. He was 66.

Conrad was born Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in Berdichev, Ukraine on December 3, 1857.

When Conrad was four, his father was arrested for plotting against the czar. He and his family were exiled into northern Russia where his young son began to get an appreciation for the classics.

Conrad, whose father got a job translating Shakespeare and Victor Hugo into Russian, began to read voraciously, especially the works of Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott and William Thackeray.

Attending school in Poland and Switzerland, Conrad eventually became a seaman. He joined the French merchant marine, and sailed to such locations as Java, Palestine, Bangkok, Singapore and Greece, gathering fodder for his future literary works.

In 1889, he became the commander of a Congo River steamboat. His experiences on the Congo was his main inspiration for one of his most successful stories, Heart of Darkness.

In the 1960's, Conrad’s other major work, Lord Jim, was made into a movie starring Peter O’toole in the title role.

Other works by Conrad include the novels Almayer’s Folly, The Inheritors, Nostromo, The Secret Agent, The Arrow of Gold and The Nature of a Crime.

Some of his short stories, in addition to Heart of Darkness, include Youth: A Narrative, and Two Other Stories, The End of the Tether and Tales of Hearsay.

Conrad died in Canterbury, England on August 3, 1924.