Generally regarded as the pre-eminent work of Conrads shorter fiction. Heart of Darkness is a chilling tale of horror which, as the author intended. is capable of many interpretations. Set in the Congo during the period of rapid colonial expansion in the nineteenth century, the story deals with the highly disturbing effects of economic.social and political exploitation on European and African societies and the cataclysrnic behaviour this induced in some individuals.

The other two stories in this book-Youth and The End of the Tether - concern the sea and those who sail upon it, a genre in which Conrad reigns supreme.

Introduction

The Text of Heart of Darkness

 Heart of Darkness

 Textual Appendix

Robert Kimbrough·Textual History and Editing

   Principles

Textual Variants

Backgrounds and Contexts

  IMPERIALISM AND THE CONGO

Encyclopazdia Britannica·Congo Free State (Tenth

     Edition, 1902)

  ·[European Reaction to Leopold's Abuses] Eleventh

     Edition, 1910)

King Leopold II·[The Sacred Mission of Civilization]

George Washington Williams·An Open Letter to His

   Serene Majesty Leopold II

Roger Casement·The Congo Report

Edmund D. Morel·[Property and Trade versus Forced

   Production]

Adam Hochschild·Meeting Mr. Kurtz

Alan Simmons·[Conrad, Casement, and the Congo

   Atrocities]

Illustrations

NINETEENTH-CENTURY ATTITUDES TOWARD RACE

G. W. F. Hegel·[The African Character]

Charles Darwin·On the Races of Man

Alfred Russel Wallace·[Are Humans One Race or

   Many?]

Francis Galton·The Comparative Worth of Different

   Races

Benjamin Kidd·[Social Progress and the Rivalry of

   the Races]

Peter Edgerly Firchow·Race, Ethnicity, Nationality,

   Empire

  CONRAD IN THE CONGO

Joseph Conrad·[Imagining Africa]

  ·Selected Letters En Route to the Congo

Zdzis/iaw Najder·[Introduction to “The Congo Diary”

    and the “Up-river Book”]

Joseph Conrad·The Congo Diary

  ·Up-river Book

  ·Selected Letters from Africa and After

  ·Geography and Some Explorers

  THE AUTHOR ON ART AND LITERATURE

Joseph Conrad·Preface to The Nigger of the

    “Narcissus”

  ·Books

  ·Henry James: An Appreciation

  ·Preface to Youth

  ·Preface to A Personal Record

  ·Selected Letters

Criticism

  CONTEMPORARY RESPONSES

   Edward Garnett·From Academy and Literature

   Unsigned Review·From the Manchester Guardian

   Unsigned Review·From the Times Literary

    Supplement

   Unsigned Review·From the Athenaeum

   John Masefield·From the Speaker

 Henry James·The New Novel

 E. M. Forster·Joseph Conrad: A Note

 Ford Madox Ford·A Personal Remembrance

Virginia Woolf·Joseph Conrad

ESSAYS IN CRITICISM

Albert Guerard·The Journey Within

 Chinua Achebe·An Image of Africa: Racism in

    Conrad's Heart of Darkness

 Ian Watt·[Impressionism and Symbolism in Heart

    of Darkness]

 Hunt Hawkins·Heart of Darkness and Racism

 Peter Brooks·An Unreadable Report: Conrad's Heart

    of Darkness

 Patrick Brantlinger·[Imperialism, Impressionism, and

    the Politics of Style]

 Marianna Torgovnick·[Primitivism and the African

    Woman in Heart of Darkness]

 Jeremy Hawthorn·The Women of Heart of Darkness

 Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan·The Failure of Metaphysics

 Edward W. Said·Two Visions in Heart of Darkness

 Paul B. Armstrong·[Reading, Race, and Representing

    Others]

Anthony Fothergill·Cannibalising Traditions:

    Representation and Critique in Heart of Darkness

Andrew Michael Roberts·[Masculinity, Modernity,

    and Homosexual Desire]

J. Hillis Miller·Should We Read “Heart of Darkness”?

 Lissa Schneider·Iconography and the Feminine Ideal

HEART OF DARKNESS and APOCALYPSE NOW

 Louis K. Greiff·Conrad's Ethics and the Margins of

    Apocalypse Now

 Margot Norris·Modernism and Vietnam

 Linda J. Dryden·“To Boldly Go”: Heart of Darkness

    and Popular Culture

Joseph Conrad: A Chronology

Selected Bibliography