Conrad's first novel is also the first part of his Malayan trilogy. Set in Borneo against an exotic and ruinous background, the book enacts the final, tragi-comic anguish of paternity of the trader Almayer, the colonialist idealist-dreamer and Conrad's first isolated man. As the husband of a Filippino woman and the father of a half-caste daughter, Almayer witnesses his dreams of wealth, conquest and escape being defeated by domestic, social and political schism. The text is here accompanied by an introduction, notes, selected criticism, text summary and a chronology of Conrad's life and times.