’Twixt Land and Sea

’Twixt Land and Sea is a collection of Joseph Conrad’s three short stories—“A Smile of Fortune,” “The Secret Sharer,” and “Freya of the Seven Isles”—published together in a single volume as Conrad meant them to be.

In “A Smile of Fortune,” a ship’s captain meets the seemingly genial Mr. Jacobus and his irritable brother while embarking in the tropics. One a respectable businessman with a considerable reputation, the other a confessed rogue and entrepreneur with no reputation left to lose, the captain is at a loss to determine which he should befriend. In this masterly tale of misplaced loyalty, family feuds, and illicit bargaining, the captain finds himself the unwitting partner in a deeply unorthodox transaction.

In “The Secret Sharer,” Leggatt, formerly chief mate of the Sephora, a neighboring ship in the Gulf, sneaks onto a young, untested captain’s ship and joins him on deck. Leggatt admits to killing a fellow crewman a few weeks ago, for which he was subsequently stripped of his duties and kept under arrest onboard. The captain hides him from his own crew ... and must decide his fate.

Conrad explores how the lust for power can drive men to greatness—or its opposite—in “Freya of the Seven Isles,” a sweeping saga set against a turbulent background of barely suppressed hostilities between Dutch and British merchant navies in the Indian Ocean basin.