Heart of Darkness is a novella by Joseph Conrad. Before publication, it appeared in a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine (1899). This highly symbolic story is actually a story within a story, or frame tale, following a man named Charlie Marlow, as he recounts his adventure to a group of men, onboard a ship anchored in the Thames Estuary, at dusk and continuing into the evening. It details an incident earlier in Marlow's life when he, an Englishman, takes a foreign assignment as a ferry boat captain on what readers can assume is the Congo River in the Belgian owned Congo Free State; the name of the country is never specified in the text. Though his job is to transport ivory downriver, Marlow quickly develops an intense interest in investigating Kurtz, an ivory procurement agent in the employment of the government. Kurtz's reputation extends throughout the region.

In these two short but profoundly influential novels, Joseph Conrad drew on actual events and people he met or heard about during his many far-flung travels. In Heart of Darkness he tells the story of the civilized, enlightened Marlow, who embarks on a harrowing "night journey" into the heart of Africa, only to discover the darkness and corruption of his own soul.

The Secret Sharer is the saga of a young, inexperienced skipper forced to decide the fate of a fugitive sailor who killed a man in self-defense. As he faces his first moral test, the skipper discovers a terrifying truth--and comes face-to-face with the shattering secret itself. In portraying men whose incredible journeys on land and at sea are also symbolic voyages into their own mysterious depths, these two masterworks give credence to Conrad"s acclaim as one of our first--and still most important-- psychological novelists.

Introduction by Franklin Walker

Heart of Darkness

The Secret Sharer

Joseph Conrad: A Biographical Sketch

Suggestions for Further Reading