The ship in Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” is the Nellie. The novella opens aboard this cruising yawl, anchored on the Thames near Gravesend as Marlow prepares to tell his companions about his journey into the Congo.
The Nellie provides the frame for the entire narrative. An unnamed narrator describes the evening scene, while Marlow recounts his earlier voyage as a steamboat captain working for a European trading company. The calm English river contrasts sharply with the violence, exploitation, and psychological darkness Marlow encounters in colonial Africa.
Readers sometimes confuse the Nellie with the steamboat Marlow pilots during his African journey. That steamboat is not given the same famous name; Nellie is the vessel carrying Marlow and his listeners in the framing story. The other options belong to different literary works: the Beagle to Charles Darwin’s voyage, the Pequod to “Moby-Dick,” and the Hispaniola to “Treasure Island.”