The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' Add a review

The Nigger of the "Narcissus": A Tale of the Forecastle (sometimes subtitled A Tale of the Sea), first published in the United States as The Children of the Sea, is an 1897 novella by Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad. The central character is an Afro-Caribbean man who is ill at sea while aboard the trading ship Narcissus heading towards London. It was renamed The Children of the Sea: A Tale of the Forecastle for the 1897 American edition, not because of the offensiveness of the title, but because it was believed that a book with the word "nigger" in the title wouldn't sell.

Some critics have described the novella as marking the start of Conrad's major or middle period; others have placed it as the best work of his early period.