Having spent his life roving faraway seas, Peyrol returns to his birthplace on the French coast to retire on a small fortune acquired through piracy. Meanwhile, the historical events of the French Revolution and France’s war with England make Peyrol reconsider his withdrawal to undertake a patriotic mission.

The Rover , published in 1923, is the last novel Conrad completed before his death in 1924. The book is in part a retelling of the myth of Acis and Galatea, and was adapted into a film in 1967. The epigraph, taken from Spenser’s The Faerie Queene , subsequently became Conrad’s epitaph.