Typhoon and Other Stories

This collection brings together “Typhoon,” “Amy Foster,” “Falk” and “To-morrow,” four stories written as Joseph Conrad moved between maritime adventure and life ashore. In “Typhoon,” Captain MacWhirr drives the steamship Nan-Shan through an immense storm in the China Sea, testing the ship, its crew and the Chinese labourers carried below deck. “Falk” returns to the Asian shipping world through the rivalry and courtship surrounding a powerful harbour tug captain with a disturbing survival story.

The two land stories examine isolation in English communities. “Amy Foster” follows an eastern European emigrant who survives a shipwreck but remains linguistically and socially estranged even after marriage, while “To-morrow” centres on an ageing seaman who has spent years expecting his missing son to return. Together the stories connect the global movement of ships and migrants with private failures of communication, sympathy and belonging.