"Victory" was first conceived by Conrad in 1915 as a short story to be called "The Dollars". But like many of his planned fictions it expanded as soon as he started writing, and went on to become one of his longest novels. The original manuscript was much longer than the final work, which was first published in serial form in Munsey's Magazine, New York.
Marked by a violent and tragic conclusion, "Victory" is both a tale of rescue and adventure and a perceptive study of a complex relationship and of the power of love.
Axel Heyst, a dreamer and a restless drifter, believes he can avoid suffering by cutting himself off from others. Then he becomes involved in the operation of a coal company on a remote island in the Malay Archipelago, and when it fails he turns his back on humanity once more. But his life alters when he rescues a young English girl, Lena, from Zangiacomo's Ladies' Orchestra and the evil innkeeper Schomberg, taking her to his island retreat. The affair between Heyst and Lena begins with her release, but the relationship shifts as Lena struggles to save Heyst from the detachment and isolation that have inhibited and influenced his life.
A central theme of "Victory" is the tragic nature of Axel Heyst's philosophical detachment from human life, and Conrad's own vision of the need for some kind of involvement in the human community. Although Conrad was in many ways a skeptic about human ideals, like Axel Heyst's father, the philosopher who published a number of books expressing a philosophy similar to Schopenhauer's intellectual pessimism, Conrad the artist and thinker recognized the importance of involvement and commitment to the human community. Hence the novel may be viewed from one perspective as the tragic consequence of Heyst's inadequate involvement with humanity.
