The Inheritors: An Extravagant Story (1901) is a quasi-science fiction novel on which Ford Madox Ford and Joseph Conrad collaborated. It looks at society's mental evolution and what is gained and lost in the process. Written before the first World War, its themes of corruption and the effect of the 20th Century on British aristocracy appeared to predict history. It was first published in London by William Heinemann and later the same year in New York by McClure, Phillips & Co. In the novel, the metaphor of the "fourth dimension" is used to explain a societal shift from a generation of people...

"Heart of Darkness" and "Lord Jim," narrated by the same character Marlow, feature prominently on lists of classics. They explore the depths of the human condition away from the society's conventions.

Ce roman raconte l'histoire de Jim, jeune officier de marine marchande britannique marque d'infamie apres l'abandon en mer Rouge, sans que les centaines de passagers embarques n'en soient prevenus, d'un navire, le Patna, qu'il pensait etre sur le point de sombrer, et qui consacre le reste de sa vie a tenter de restaurer sa legitimite, en particulier a Patusan, territoire de l'Asie du Sud-Est. Jim est un homme d'extreme bravoure en ses intentions, mais d'une couardise insigne en ses actions; a la poursuite d'un reve d'heroisme grandiose, et en perpetuel recul devant l'adversite; un geant en...

Un etudiant russe (Razoumov) trouve un soir chez lui, cache, l'assassin d'un eminent homme d'Etat responsable repression tsariste survenue des heures plus tot. Ce dernier lui demande de l'aider a fuir. Notre heros accepte, mais finit par le denoncer a la police. Il se trouve alors pris dans un engrenage et est engage pour espionner des revolutionnaires actifs a l'etranger, et notamment en Suisse... Sous les yeux des occidentaux qui peinent a comprendre l'ame slave se deroule la tragedie du peuple russe broye par l'autocratie et l'anarchisme."

Joseph Conrad (1857 -1924) was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. He joined the British merchant marine in 1878, and was granted British nationality in 1886. The story is set in London in 1886 and deals with Mr. Adolf Verloc and his work as a spy for an unnamed country (presumably Russia). The Secret Agent is one of Conrad's later political novels in which he moved away from his former tales of seafaring.

The best selling classic Heart of Darkness tells of Charles Marlow, an Englishman who worked for a Belgian trading company as a ferry-boat captain in Africa. Marlow is employed to transport ivory downriver. However, his more urgent job is to return Kurtz,

The best selling classic Heart of Darkness tells of Charles Marlow, an Englishman who worked for a Belgian trading company as a ferry-boat captain in Africa. Marlow is employed to transport ivory downriver. However, his more urgent job is to return Kurtz,