'To the white men in the waterside business and to
the captain of ships he was just Jim - nothing more. He
had, of course, another name, but he was anxious that it
should not be pronounced.' Lord Jim tells the story of a
young, idealistic Englishman - 'as unflinching as a hero
in a book' - who is disgraced by a single act of
cowardice while serving as an officer on the Patna, a
merchant-ship sailing from an Eastern port. His life is
blighted: an isolated scandal assumes horrifying
proportions. An older man, Marlow, befriends Jim, and
helps to establish him in Patusan, a remote Malay
settlement. There he achieves a kind of peace, but his
courage is put to the test once more. Lord Jim is one of
the most profound and rewarding psychological novels in
English. Set in the context of social change and
colonial expansion in late Victorian England, it
embodies in Jim the values and the turmoil of a fading
empire. In his introduction and notes to this new
edition Jacques Berthoud explores the social and
cultural dynamics that inform the novel. ABOUT THE
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