So great was Jim's dream of honor and heroism, and so abruptly is it shattered. The certainty that he can never erase his own failure torments him and turns him into an outcast. "Lord Jim," Conrad's most famous novel, tells the story of a young English ship officer, a sensitive and imaginative person, who has lived with the dream since childhood of being destined for a special purpose, and who fails at the moment of truth. The nightmare of his wrongdoing drives Jim further and further east, and it almost seems as if the world is not big enough for him.