First published in 1906, The Mirror of the Sea was the first of Joseph Conrad’s two autobiographical memoirs. In this book, the author compared the sea to a woman against which men could measure themselves.

In 1878, Joseph Conrad signed aboard a British freighter and began a 17-year odyssey. The Mirror of the Sea is his factual account of this period. In this book, Conrad describes the ocean’s moods, her anger and charm, how men deal with her. Conrad had no illusions about the sea or the men who worked its commerce. He saw the ocean as metaphor against which men could measure themselves.

Joseph Conrad（3 December 1857 – 3 August 1930) was a Polish author who wrote in English after settling in England.He wrote stories and novels, often with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of an indifferent universe. He was a master prose stylist who brought a distinctly non-English sensibility into English literature.