In the south of France, an old sailor named Peyrol longs for retirement after 50 years of sailing the seas as a pirate and a sailor. It is here, in an isolated farmhouse that he will try to withdraw from a life that was filled with adventure and blood. The country that he calls home is a foreign land to him as he wrestles with his desire to return to the ocean and his identity as a man. Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution and Napoleon's rise to power, The Rover is the last book that was completed by Conrad and is a fitting end to a long career.