1. His real name is Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski. He was born in Russian-occupied Poland and his parents both died of tuberculosis when he was pretty young.
2. He eventually went to Marseilles and started sailing for the French merchant service, but then had trouble with a failed smuggling expedition and gambling and the inability to get a Russian military exemption and tried to kill himself (say most people. Some people think he just got shot in a duel). It’s weird to think that he could have been dead before he’d even written a word.
3. There were long periods where he couldn’t find sailing jobs, because steamships were becoming so common.
4. He eventually went to England, knowing very little English, and that’s where he started writing. In English. Even though it was his third language.
5. He was second mate on a ship that was caught in a storm and then caught fire and sank off of Sumatra. Which informed a lot of his later work.