Joseph Conrad was born in 1857 in Berdyczów, Ukraine. He was of Polish and Roman Catholic descent. In 1868, he attended high school in Lemberg, Galicia and later moved with his father to Cracow, where his father passed away. In 1874, Conrad went to Marseilles and joined the French merchant navy. Over the next 20 years, he had a successful career as a ship's officer sailing on British ships. In 1890, his journey to the Belgian Congo inspired his novella Heart of Darkness. Although he had a master's certificate, he struggled to get commands, so he began writing fiction based on his travels, including his first novel Almayer's Folly in 1895, launching