The Shadow-Line is a short
novel based at sea by
Joseph Conrad; it is one of his later works, being written from February to December 1915. It was first published in 1916 as a serial in New York's
Metropolitan Magazine (September—October) in the
English Review (September 1916-March 1917) and published in book form in 1917 in the UK (March) and America (April). The novella depicts the development of a young man upon taking a captaincy in the
Orient, with the
shadow line of the title representing the threshold of this development.