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.
As Joseph Conrad wrote in his Authors Note to this volume, it is well known that curious men go prying into all sorts of places (where they have no business) and come out of them with all kinds of spoil,These stories tell of men who go beyond the normal routine of ordinary life to test themselves where they have no business, whether from curiosity or from necessity, and of the illegitimate and deplorable kinds of spoilthat result from such encounters. Conrad tells us not only of the spoil brought back, but also of the spoils left by the wayside; and prying into these stories can spoil us too, by denying us the comfort of our unthinking pride in the virtues of our civilisation. As Marlow says,The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.
