An Outcast of the Islands was only Conrad`s second novel, but in its theme, in its impressionistic use of scenery, and, and over all, in the enormous richness and power of the writing, it predicts Conrad`s position as a literary figure of the highest rank. Peter Willems, a clerk in Macassar, granted a "second chance" at a remote river trading post, falls ever more hopelessly into traps set by himself and others. A parable of human frailty, with love and death the major players, this is a story of a man unable to understand others and fated never to possess his own soul.