Almayer's Folly is Joseph Conrad's first novel and was published in 1895. The novel centers on the Dutch trader Kaspar Almayer and the events leading to and surrounding his life in the jungles of Borneo. It is set in the late 1800s. Kaspar Almayer is a Dutch merchant taken under the wing of the wealthy Captain Lingard. Desirious of one day inheriting Captain Lingard's wealth the young Almayer agrees to marry his adopted Malay child and run Lingard's trading post in Sambir in the jungles of Borneo. The marriage is loveless, Captain Lingard loses much of his fortune searching for a hidden treasure, and Almayer's ventures continually fail-most notably an expansive trading house that no one comes to trade in.