Heart of Darkness

Written in the last year of the nineteenth century, Heart of Darkness can be seen in many ways as the first twentieth-century novel.

Its climate of doubt and vagueness, its loss of moral confidence and its need for belief in the midst of spiritual wilderness, its exploration of the subconscious and its affirmation of individual freedom are all themes that were to have an influence on writers such as Orwell, Golding, Céline, Borges and Eliot.

In Heart of Darkness Conrad unfolds the story of Marlow's search for Mr Kurtz, the company agent whose "unlawful soul" has been "beguiled beyond the bounds of permitted aspirations" in his dealings with the natives of the Belgian Congo. Marlow's adventure involves him in a crucial reappraisal of his own values. It is Kurtz, however, who attains to a vision of the inexpressible, terrifying reality of the heart, in this extraordinary exploration of human savagery and despair.

Author: Joseph Conrad 

Publisher: Penguin

Released Date: 1984

ISBN: 9780140431681