Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad

"There is no being out with it, it's inside you."

Jim, a promising young officer in the British merchant marine, commits a cowardly act by abandoning a sinking ship and its passengers. Disgraced and stripped of his rank, he spends the rest of his life fleeing his past, eventually finding a chance for redemption as the leader of a remote trading post in Southeast Asia. But his guilt and the judgment of others follow him to the ends of the earth.

Joseph Conrad's novel is a profound psychological study of honor, guilt, and the elusive nature of heroism. It questions whether a man can ever truly escape a moment of moral failure.