author - "Joseph Conrad"
Description The place is London, and the time is the late 1800s. Mr. Verloc appears to be an unassuming owner of a bric-a-brac store, but he’s actually a spy for an unnamed country. When he’s summoned by his superiors and ordered to plant a bomb to foment unrest in English politics and society, he finds himself stuck in a more-than-uncomfortable situation. Conrad’s novel is set against the background of the Greenwich Observatory bombing, in which an anarchist unsuccessfully tried to detonate a
Description Originally published serially as a three-part story, Heart of Darkness is a short but thematically complex novel exploring colonialism, humanity, and what constitutes a savage society. Set in the Congo in Central Africa, the tale is told in the frame of the recollections of one Charles Marlow, a captain of an ivory steamer. Marlow’s search for the mysterious and powerful “first-class agent” Kurtz gives way to a nuanced and powerful commentary on the horrors of colonialism, called by
g himself into liberty and a pension at last, or hadto go out of his gas-lighted grave straight into that other dark onewhere nobody would want to intrude. My humanity was pleased to discoverhe had so much kick left in him, but I was not comforted in the least. Itoccurred to me that if Mr. Powell had the same sort of temper . . .However, I didn't give myself time to think and scuttled across the spaceat the foot of the stairs into the passage where I'd been told to try.And I tried the first
ied; in which the narrator of the tale finds himself unexpectedly involved both on its ruthless and its delicate side."Falk" shares with one other of my stories ("The Return" in the "Tales of Unrest" volume) the distinction of never having been serialized. I think the copy was shown to the editor of some magazine who rejected it indignantly on the sole ground that "the girl never says anything." This is perfectly true. From first to last Hermann's niece
elt sure--he alone would know how to deal with the spurious menace of wind and seas. He knew what to think of it. Seen dispassionately, it seemed contemptible. He could detect no trace of emotion in himself, and the final effect of a staggering event was that, unnoticed and apart from the noisy crowd of boys, he exulted with fresh certitude in his avidity for adventure, and in a sense of many-sided courage. CHAPTER 2 After two years of training he went to sea, and entering the regions so well
c was susceptible to these fascinations. Mr Verloc was an intermittent patron. He came and went without any very apparent reason. He generally arrived in London (like the influenza) from the Continent, only he arrived unheralded by the Press; and his visitations set in with great severity. He breakfasted in bed, and remained wallowing there with an air of quiet enjoyment till noon every day - and sometimes even to a later hour. But when he went out he seemed to experience a great difficulty in
pree on shore suffices to unfold for himthe secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secretnot worth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity,the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut.But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns beexcepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not insidelike a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought itout only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one ofthese misty
Description Originally published as a serial, Nostromo is set in a fictional South American country where the outbreak of civil war puts the mining town of Sulaco in turmoil. Giovanni Battista Fidanza, known as Nostromo, is given the task of smuggling out a large amount of silver to keep it from the revolutionaries. Conrad was inspired to write the book when he read, in a sailor’s memoir, the tale of a man who singlehandedly stole a boatload of silver. He had first heard the same story a
Description The place is London, and the time is the late 1800s. Mr. Verloc appears to be an unassuming owner of a bric-a-brac store, but he’s actually a spy for an unnamed country. When he’s summoned by his superiors and ordered to plant a bomb to foment unrest in English politics and society, he finds himself stuck in a more-than-uncomfortable situation. Conrad’s novel is set against the background of the Greenwich Observatory bombing, in which an anarchist unsuccessfully tried to detonate a
Description Originally published serially as a three-part story, Heart of Darkness is a short but thematically complex novel exploring colonialism, humanity, and what constitutes a savage society. Set in the Congo in Central Africa, the tale is told in the frame of the recollections of one Charles Marlow, a captain of an ivory steamer. Marlow’s search for the mysterious and powerful “first-class agent” Kurtz gives way to a nuanced and powerful commentary on the horrors of colonialism, called by
g himself into liberty and a pension at last, or hadto go out of his gas-lighted grave straight into that other dark onewhere nobody would want to intrude. My humanity was pleased to discoverhe had so much kick left in him, but I was not comforted in the least. Itoccurred to me that if Mr. Powell had the same sort of temper . . .However, I didn't give myself time to think and scuttled across the spaceat the foot of the stairs into the passage where I'd been told to try.And I tried the first
ied; in which the narrator of the tale finds himself unexpectedly involved both on its ruthless and its delicate side."Falk" shares with one other of my stories ("The Return" in the "Tales of Unrest" volume) the distinction of never having been serialized. I think the copy was shown to the editor of some magazine who rejected it indignantly on the sole ground that "the girl never says anything." This is perfectly true. From first to last Hermann's niece
elt sure--he alone would know how to deal with the spurious menace of wind and seas. He knew what to think of it. Seen dispassionately, it seemed contemptible. He could detect no trace of emotion in himself, and the final effect of a staggering event was that, unnoticed and apart from the noisy crowd of boys, he exulted with fresh certitude in his avidity for adventure, and in a sense of many-sided courage. CHAPTER 2 After two years of training he went to sea, and entering the regions so well
c was susceptible to these fascinations. Mr Verloc was an intermittent patron. He came and went without any very apparent reason. He generally arrived in London (like the influenza) from the Continent, only he arrived unheralded by the Press; and his visitations set in with great severity. He breakfasted in bed, and remained wallowing there with an air of quiet enjoyment till noon every day - and sometimes even to a later hour. But when he went out he seemed to experience a great difficulty in
pree on shore suffices to unfold for himthe secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secretnot worth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity,the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut.But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns beexcepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not insidelike a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought itout only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one ofthese misty
Description Originally published as a serial, Nostromo is set in a fictional South American country where the outbreak of civil war puts the mining town of Sulaco in turmoil. Giovanni Battista Fidanza, known as Nostromo, is given the task of smuggling out a large amount of silver to keep it from the revolutionaries. Conrad was inspired to write the book when he read, in a sailor’s memoir, the tale of a man who singlehandedly stole a boatload of silver. He had first heard the same story a