This short tale was first published in book form alongside 'Heart of Darkness' and 'The End of the Tether', the three tales representing youth, middle age and old age, respectively. One of Conrad's 'Marlow yarns', the story is based on the trouble-plagued, much-delayed and ultimately ill-fated voyage of the cargo vessel 'Palestine' carrying coal from England to Bangkok in 1882-1883, on which Conrad served his first posting as second mate. The story is notable in the light-hearted buoyancy ...

Social networks are ubiquitous. The science of networks has shaped how researchers and society understand the spread of disease, the precursors of loneliness, the rise of protest movements, the causes of social inequality, the influence of social media, and much more. Egocentric analysis conceives of each individual, or ego, as embedded in a personal network of alters, a community partially of their creation and nearly unique to them, whose composition and structure have consequences. This...