Lord Jim.

"In a moment of crisis, an idealistic ship's officer abandons his post, leaving several hundred passengers to drown. The event at the center of Joseph Conrad's acclaimed novel establishes the character and fate of Jim. Tormented by his defection from his code of conduct, Jim embarks on the globe-traveling quest to regain honor. In the process, he insinuates himself as a leader among a people unaware of his past. Arthur Symons and other critics read Lord Jim as an exploration of Conrad's own 'ideal of an applauded heroism', an ideal that confronts the demands of pragmatism. Others see an allegory for Conrad's guilt over abandoning his native Poland or, alternatively, a story of universal shame. Conrad has come under modern attack for associating 'natives' with chaos and evil. But in Conrad's novels, it is ultimately the colonial system itself that is fraught with horror." (NYPL Books of the Century 67). Listed by Modern Library as one of the 100 great novels of the twentieth century.