Almost Shipwrecked
in The Brownsville Daily Herald (Brownsville, TX, USA) (Sep 27, 1912): (Page imagery not yet available)
- First serialized as Some Reminiscences in The English Review (London, UK) (Dec 1908 — Jun 1909)
- Collected as A Personal Record in A Personal Record (1912)
- Subsequently serialized as Some Reminiscences in The New York Sun (New York, NY, USA) (Feb 3, 1912)
- Subsequently extracted as Almost Shipwrecked: Trying Ordeal For the Sailor Who Would Be a Master in The Lowville Herald & Lewis County Democrat (Lowville, NY, USA) (Nov 17, 1912)
- Subsequently extracted as Almost Shipwrecked: Trying Ordeal For the Sailor Who Would Be a Master in The Geneva Advertiser-Gazette (Geneva NY, USA) (Nov 17, 1912)
- Subsequently serialized as The Red Ensign in The Times Broadsheet Edition (London, UK) (Jan 1, 1918)
- Subsequently extracted as Joseph Conrad Decides to Go to Sea in The Christian Science Monitor (Boston, MA, USA) (Sep 18, 1919)
- Subsequently extracted as Joseph Conrad Decides to Go to Sea in The Lewiston Evening Journal (Lewiston, ME, USA) (Oct 2, 1919)
- Subsequently serialized as My English! in The Book Monthly (London, UK) (Dec 1919)
- Subsequently serialized as Des Souvenirs in Le Correspondant (Paris, France) (Aug 25, 1924 — Oct 25, 1925)
- Subsequently extracted as Prispevek k teoriji umetniškega ustvarjanja in Ljubljanski zvon (Ljubljana, Slovenia) (Feb 1928)
- Subsequently serialized as Lebenserinnerungen in Die Neue Rundschau (Berlin, Germany) (Sep 1928)
- Subsequently extracted as Conrad's First Touch of England in The Christian Science Monitor (Boston, MA, USA) (Jan 12, 1931)
- Subsequently serialized as A Familiar Preface in Encore (Hoboken, NJ, USA) (Jan 1943)
- Subsequently extracted as Über mich selbst in Welt und Wort: Literarische Monatsschrift (Tübingen, Germany) (May 1964)
View in Internet Archive BookReader (experimental). Extract reads:
ALMOST SHIPWRECKED.
Trying Ordeal For the Sailor Who Wanted to Be a Master.
Joseph Conrad, who was a sailor before he turned author, has told of the examination that he underwent for his master's certificate. The examiner began by trying to make him talk nonsense.
"But I had been warned of that fiendish trait and contradicted him with great assurance. After awhile he left off. So far good. Placing me then in a ship of a certain size at sea under certain conditions of weather, season, and so forth, he ordered me to execute a certain maneuver. Before I was half through with it he did some material damage to the ship. As soon as I had grappled with that difficulty he caused another to present itself, and when that, too, was met he stuck another ship before me, creating a very dangerous situation. I felt slightly outraged by this ingenuity in piling trouble upon a man.
"'I wouldn't have got into that mess,' I suggested mildly. 'I could have seen that ship.'
"'No, you couldn't. The weather's thick.'
"'Oh!' I apologised blankly.
"The examiner did not stop there. Difficulty followed difficulty in the imaginary homeward voyage until when just off a lee shore with outlying sand banks the examinee said desperately, 'I shall have to think a little, sir.'
"'Doesn't look as if there were much time to think,' was the sardonic reply.
"'No, sir,' the examinee responded, not on board a ship; but, then, I could see. As it is, so many accidents have happened that I really can't remember what's left for me to work with. Have I two anchors at the bow, sir?'
"'Yes. But there's only one cable. You've lost the other.'
"'Then I would back them if I could and tail the heaviest hawser on board on the end of the chain before letting go, and if she parted from that, which is quite likely, I would just do nothing.'
"'Nothing more to do, eh?'
"'No, sir. I could do no more.'
"'You could always say your prayers.'
"But the shipwrecked captain of this vessel in multiform distress was not shipwrecked after all. He passed with credit."
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ALMOST SHIPWRECKED.
Trying Ordeal For the Sailor Who Wanted to Be a Master.
Joseph Conrad, who was a sailor before he turned author, has told of the examination that he underwent for his master's certificate. The examiner began by trying to make him talk nonsense.
"But I had been warned of that fiendish trait and contradicted him with great assurance. After awhile he left off. So far good. Placing me then in a ship of a certain size at sea under certain conditions of weather, season, and so forth, he ordered me to execute a certain maneuver. Before I was half through with it he did some material damage to the ship. As soon as I had grappled with that difficulty he caused another to present itself, and when that, too, was met he stuck another ship before me, creating a very dangerous situation. I felt slightly outraged by this ingenuity in piling trouble upon a man.
"'I wouldn't have got into that mess,' I suggested mildly. 'I could have seen that ship.'
"'No, you couldn't. The weather's thick.'
"'Oh!' I apologised blankly.
"The examiner did not stop there. Difficulty followed difficulty in the imaginary homeward voyage until when just off a lee shore with outlying sand banks the examinee said desperately, 'I shall have to think a little, sir.'
"'Doesn't look as if there were much time to think,' was the sardonic reply.
"'No, sir,' the examinee responded, not on board a ship; but, then, I could see. As it is, so many accidents have happened that I really can't remember what's left for me to work with. Have I two anchors at the bow, sir?'
"'Yes. But there's only one cable. You've lost the other.'
"'Then I would back them if I could and tail the heaviest hawser on board on the end of the chain before letting go, and if she parted from that, which is quite likely, I would just do nothing.'
"'Nothing more to do, eh?'
"'No, sir. I could do no more.'
"'You could always say your prayers.'
"But the shipwrecked captain of this vessel in multiform distress was not shipwrecked after all. He passed with credit."
Available for a fee from newspaperarchive.com.