Heart of Darkness: the Classic Novel by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad

Nov 2017 · Classic Books Book 21 · Xist Publishing

About this ebook

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Where does darkness lie strongest in the world? In Joseph Conrad's classic novel, the river captain Charles Marlow tells his tale of work as a steamboat captain for an ivory trading company. As Marlow witnesses delays, tragedies and injustice, he grows more disillusioned with his exploration of the African river. When he meets Mr. Kurtz, the company's agent in charge of an up-river trading post, Marlow is forced to confront the darkness residing in human nature.
Heart of Darkness has often been listed as one of the 100 Greatest works of English Literature and is one of the most often studied novels in high school and college English courses.

About the author

Joseph Conrad is recognized as one of the 20th century's greatest English language novelists. He was born Jozef Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski on December 3, 1857, in the Polish Ukraine. His father, a writer and translator, was from Polish nobility, but political activity against Russian oppression led to his exile. Conrad was orphaned at a young age and subsequently raised by his uncle. At 17 he went to sea, an experience that shaped the bleak view of human nature which he expressed in his fiction. In such works as Lord Jim (1900), Youth (1902), and Nostromo (1904), Conrad depicts individuals thrust by circumstances beyond their control into moral and emotional dilemmas. His novel Heart of Darkness (1902), perhaps his best known and most influential work, narrates a literal journey to the center of the African jungle. This novel inspired the acclaimed motion picture Apocalypse Now. After the publication of his first novel, Almayer's Folly (1895), Conrad gave up the sea. He produced thirteen novels, two volumes of memoirs, and twenty-eight short stories. He died on August 3, 1924, in England.