Top 100 Classic Books Joseph Conrad was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. Though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he was a master stylist, both lush and precise, who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. The Shadow Line tells a story of young sea captain, whose first command brings with it a succession of crises: sea is becalmed, the crew laid low by fewer, and his first mate is convinced that the ship is haunted by the spirit of a previous captain.