Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time
Edited and with Notes by Peter Lancelot Mallios
Introduction by Robert D. Kaplan
In reexamining The Secret Agent in a post-9/11 world, Robert D. Kaplan praises Joseph Conrad's "surgical insight into the mechanics of terrorism," calling the book "a fine example of how a savvy novelist may detect the future long before a social scientist does."
This intense 1907 thriller-a precursor to works by Graham Greene and John le Carre-concerns a British double agent who infiltrates a cabal of...

First published in 1906, "The Mirror of the Sea" was the first of Joseph Conrad's two autobiographical memoirs. Discussing it, he called the book "a very intimate revelation. . . . I have attempted here to lay bare with the unreserve of a last hour's confession the terms of my relation with the sea, which beginning mysteriously, like any great passion the inscrutable Gods send to mortals, went on unreasoning and invincible, surviving the test of disillusion, defying the disenchantment that lurks in every day of a strenuous life; went on full of love's delight and love's anguish, facing them...

This book contains the novel that brought Joseph Conrad success after nearly twenty years as a struggling writer. 'Chance' tells the story of Flora de Barrel, a girl who is abandoned by her tycoon father and who struggles and strives in the search of happiness and dignity. The first of Conrad's works to have a happy ending, this heart-warming tale will appeal to those who like inspirational and of feel-good literature, and it is a veritable must-have for fans and collectors of Conrad's work. The chapters of this book include: 'Young Powell and his Chance', 'The Fynes and The Girl-Friend',...

CONTENTS Youth Heart of Darkness The Nigger of the Nacissus Il Conde Gaspar Ruiz The Brute Typhoon The Secret Sharer Freya of the Seven Isles The Duel The End of the Tether The Shadow-Line

A novel of naval life in Napoleonic France. After forty years of piracy on Eastern seas, Citizen Peyrol returns to his native France, a country now ravaged and scarred by revolution and war. Looking for peace in which to end his days, he withdraws to a safe harbor in a remote farmhouse on Escampobar Peninsula, which looks out to the distant Mediterranean, where the lovely Arlette lives with her aunt and the revolutionary Scevola. But the arrival of young Lieutenant Real calls Peyrol once again to action in a mission of danger, patriotism and heroism. This was the last novel of Joseph Conrad,...

The first part, titled Letters, contains essays on such topics as Books, Henry James, Alphonse Daudet, Guy de Maupassant, Anatole France, Turgenev, Stephen Crane, Tales of the Sea, An Observer in Malaya, The Life Beyond, and The Censor of Plays. The second part, title Life, includes such topics as Autocracy and War, The Crime of Partition, Note on the Polish Problem, Tradition, Confidence, Flight, Some Reflections on the Loss of the "Titanic," Protection of Ocean Liners, and A Friendly Place.Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist best known in his own time as a writer of sea...

In the private editorial office of the principal newspaper in a great colonial city two men were talking. They were both young. The stouter of the two, fair, and with more of an urban look about him, was the editor and part-owner of the important newspaper. The other's name was Renouard. That he was exercised in his mind about something was evident on his fine bronzed face. He was a lean, lounging, active man. The journalist continued the conversation. "And so you were dining yesterday at old Dunster's." He used the word old not in the endearing sense in which it is sometimes applied to...

A revolutionary war raises many strange characters out of the obscurity which is the common lot of humble lives in an undisturbed state of society. Certain individualities grow into fame through their vices and their virtues, or simply by their actions, which may have a temporary importance; and then they become forgotten. The names of a few leaders alone survive the end of armed strife and are further preserved in history; so that, vanishing from men's active memories, they still exist in books. The name of General Santierra attained that cold paper-and-ink immortality. He was a South...