Perhaps more than most of Conrad's works, "Youth" seems to owe a literary debt to Conrad's early reading, especially the sea stories of James Fenimore Cooper and Captain Frederick Marryat. Although these authors were more romantic in their view of life than Conrad, their tales of young men coming of age at sea clearly provide a precedent for "Youth."

As usual, Conrad also is influenced by the realistic tradition of Flaubert and Henry James, although the subject matter of 'Youth" could scarcely be more distant and removed from theirs.