"Olmeire's Whim" and "The Exile from the Islands" are the first two novels by Joseph Conrad, which made him prominent in the London literary arena, but at the same time brought him the disgusting fame of "exotic writer". Herbert Wells spoke favorably of these works, and the writing of one of them was accompanied by a love story, the traces of which are remotely preserved only in the epigraph. It was during this period of his life that Conrad finally left the sea and, full of doubts and financial difficulties, devoted himself to literary work. This is an early period of his work, all the more interesting because the author's close attention to the embarrassing element in the human soul, his ideological uncertainty and skeptical view of the European imperial project is already noticeable here. The Heart of Darkness will appear in a few years. Victor Petrovsky's translation of Olmeir's Whim was first published in 1929, the first reprint since. The translation of "Exile from the Islands" was made for the first time.
