An Outcast of the Islands (1896), Conrad's second novel, is a tale of intrigue in an eastern setting. Love and death are the major players in this parable of human frailty - the story of a man unable to understand others and fated never to possess his own soul. Peter Willems, a clerk in Macassar, granted a `second chance' at a remote river trading post, falls ever more hopelessly into traps set by himself and others. The pawn of Babalatchi, the one-eyed schemer of power politics, and of the rich Abdulla, who uses Willems to increase his own wealth, his fate is sealed by his lover, A issa, and by Almayer, an embittered fellow-countryman. The novel is a relentless expos 'e of individual illusion and desire, and a dissection of the futile egotisms and petty corruption at the base of all political and social organizations. This book is intended for students of English literature; those taking courses in modern fiction, the modern British novel; images of the Third World; general readers.