The rover

In the south of France, an old sailor named Peyrol longs for retirement after 50 years of sailing the seas as a pirate and a sailor. It is here, in an isolated farmhouse that he will try to withdraw from a life that was filled with adventure and blood. The country that he calls home is a foreign land to him as he wrestles with his desire to return to the ocean and his identity as a man. Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution and Napoleon's rise to power, The Rover is the last book that was completed by Conrad and is a fitting end to a long career. Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) was a Polish-born author who left Poland in his teens to avoid enlistment in the Russian Army. He learned English aboard British ships and started writing in the language after settling in England. His most famous novel is 'Heart of Darkness' (1899), which was inspired by his experiences on the open sea.