Typhoon

Typhoon is a novella by Joseph Conrad, begun in 1899 and serialised in 1902. It was published as a book in New York in 1902 and in Britain the following year in a collection called Typhoon and Other Stories.

MacWhirr is the captain of the Nan-Shan, a British-built steamer sailing under the Siamese flag, and he is a man whom Conrad describes as never having walked on this Earth: he is estranged from his family and from his crew. The other figures in the story are the young mate Jukes and Solomon Rout, the chief engineer. His unwillingness to turn aside is what the crew end up admiring, even though he is the man keeping them in the storm.

When the ship meets the storm the captain refuses to take the alternative course that would skirt it, and the novella follows the steamer and the men aboard through the weather. Conrad shows how a steamship differs from a sailing vessel, in the way the crew is divided between sailors and engineers and in the unromantic labour that keeps her going.