The silence of the jungle is broken only by the ominous sound of drumming. Life on the river is brutal and unknown threats lurk in the darkness. Marlow's mission to captain a steamer upriver into the dense interior leads him into conflict with those who inhabit the forest. But his decision to hunt down the mysterious Mr. Kurtz--an ivory trader who is the subject of sinister rumors--leads him into more than just physical peril. The short story Youth, in which Marlow tells of his unlucky experience onboard a ship where the cargo caught fire, is also included.
The silence of the jungle is broken only by the ominous sound of drumming. Life on the river is brutal and unknown threats lurk in the darkness. Marlo...
A young and inexperienced sea captain finds that his first command leaves him with a ship stranded in tropical seas and a crew smitten with fever. As he wrestles with his conscience and with the increasing sense of isolation that he experiences, the captain crosses the 'shadow-line' between youth and adulthood. In many ways an autobiographical narrative, Conrad's novella was written at the start of the Great War when his son Borys was at the Western Front, and can be seen as an attempt to open humanity's eyes to the qualities needed to face evil and destruction. For more than seventy...
A young and inexperienced sea captain finds that his first command leaves him with a ship stranded in tropical seas and a crew smitten with fever. As ...
'The Secret Agent' is woven around an attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894 masterminded by Verloc, a secret agent for a foreign country and ostensibly a member of an anarchist group in Soho.
'The Secret Agent' is woven around an attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894 masterminded by Verloc, a secret agent for a foreign country and ost...
'Heart of Darkness' has been considered for most of this century as a literary classic, and also as a powerful indictment of the evils of imperialism. Conrad's narrator encounters at the end of the story a man named Kurtz, dying, insane, and guilty of unspeakable atrocities.
'Heart of Darkness' has been considered for most of this century as a literary classic, and also as a powerful indictment of the evils of imperialism....
This compact novel, completed in 1900, as with so many of the great novels of the time, is at its baseline a book of the sea. An English boy in a simple town has dreams bigger than the outdoors and embarks at an early age into the sailor's life. The waters he travels reward him with the ability to explore the human spirit, while Joseph Conrad launches the story into both an exercise of his technical prowess and a delicately crafted picture of a character who reaches the status of a literary hero. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in...
This compact novel, completed in 1900, as with so many of the great novels of the time, is at its baseline a book of the sea. An English boy in a simp...
Nostromo, published in 1904, is one of Conrad's finest works. Nostromo - though one hundred years old - says as much about today's Latin America as any of the finest recent accounts of that region's turbulent political life. Insistently dramatic in its storytelling, spectacular in its recreation of the subtropical landscape, this picture of an insurrectionary society and the opportunities it provides for moral corruption gleams on every page with its author's dry, undeceived, impeccable intelligence. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of...
Nostromo, published in 1904, is one of Conrad's finest works. Nostromo - though one hundred years old - says as much about today's La...
The finest of all Conrad's tales, Heart of Darkness is set in an atmosphere of mystery and menace, and tells of Marlow's perilous journey up the Congo River to relieve his employer's agent, the renowned and formidable Mr. Kurtz. What he sees on his journey, and his eventual encounter with Kurtz, horrify and perplex him, and call into question the very bases of civilization and human nature. Endlessly reinterpreted by critics and adapted for film, radio, and television, the story shows Conrad at his most intense and sophisticated. The other three tales in this volume depict...
The finest of all Conrad's tales, Heart of Darkness is set in an atmosphere of mystery and menace, and tells of Marlow's perilous journey up ...
Lord Jim tells the story of a young, idealistic Englishman--"as unflinching as a hero in a book"--who is disgraced by a single act of cowardice while serving as an officer on the Patna, a merchant-ship sailing from an eastern port. His life is ruined: an isolated scandal has assumed horrifying proportions. But, then he is befriended by an older man named Marlow who helps to establish him in exotic Patusan, a remote Malay settlement where his courage is put to the test once more. Lord Jim is a book about courage and cowardice, self-knowledge and personal growth. It is one of the most profound...
Lord Jim tells the story of a young, idealistic Englishman--"as unflinching as a hero in a book"--who is disgraced by a single act of cowardice while ...
This volume contains "Typhoon," "The Secret Sharer," "Falk," and "Amy Foster." "Typhoon," a story of a steamship and her crew beset by a tempest, is a masterpiece of descriptive virtuosity and moral irony, while "The Secret Sharer" excels in symbolic ambiguity. Both stories vividly present Conrad's abiding preoccupation with the theme of solidarity, challenged from without by the elements and from within by human doubts and fears. Conrad's experiences as a captain of the ship Otago in 1888 provided material for both "The Secret Sharer" and "Falk." "Amy Foster," written in 1901, is bleak...
This volume contains "Typhoon," "The Secret Sharer," "Falk," and "Amy Foster." "Typhoon," a story of a steamship and her crew beset by a tempest, is a...
Chance(1914) was the first of Conrad's novels to bring him popular success and it holds a unique place among his works. It tells the story of Flora de Barral, a vulnerable and abandoned young girl who is "like a beggar, without a right to anything but compassion." After her bankrupt father is imprisoned, she learns the harsh fact that a woman in her position "has no resources but in herself." Her only means of action is to be what she is. Flora's long struggle to achieve some dignity and happiness makes her Conrad's most moving female character. Reflecting the contemporary interest in the...
Chance(1914) was the first of Conrad's novels to bring him popular success and it holds a unique place among his works. It tells the story of Flora de...
