Joseph Conrad 
The Rescue (Annotated) 

• This edition includes the following editor’s introduction: The importance of water in the literature of Joseph Conrad

First published in 1920, “The Rescue” (also known as
The Rescue, A Romance of the Shallows) is one of Joseph Conrad’s works contained in what is now sometimes referred to as
The Lingard Trilogy , a group of novels revolving around the character of Tom Lingard and based on Conrad’s experience as mate on the steamer Vidar. Although it was the last of the three novels to be published, after “Almayer’s Folly” (1895) and “An Outcast of the Islands” (1896), the events related in the novel precede those. The novel took twenty years to complete. Conrad started it in the late 1890’s. He set it aside in 1898 to work on other projects and didn’t complete it until 1918. Had he completed “The Rescue” without interruption, it would have been his third book, making his first three novels the trilogy.



“The Rescue” narrates the story of Captain Tom Lingard, the recurring protagonist of
The Lingard Trilogy, who was on his way to help a native friend regain his land when he falls in love with a married woman whose yacht he saves from foundering…