Peter Willems is a successful clerk in a Dutch East Indies trading company until he’s caught for embezzlement. He turns to Tom Lingard, his erstwhile benefactor, who sends him to work in a commercial outpost on a river settlement. There, Willems meets a young and beautiful native girl. Overwhelmed by this encounter, he’s tempted to turn on his employer.

An Outcast of the Islands is Joseph Conrad’s second novel. It was published in 1896, just one year after his literary debut, Almayer’s Folly . Surprisingly, despite sharing the same setting and several characters, it’s not a sequel, but rather takes place about 15 years earlier. One of the main supporting characters, Tom Lingard, also appears in one of Conrad’s later novels, The Rescue . Collectively, these three works are sometimes referred to as the Lingard Trilogy .