The secret agent : a simple tale / Joseph Conrad.
By: Conrad, Joseph.
Material type: BookSeries: Penguin popular classics.Publisher: London : Penguin, 1994Description: 248 p. ; 18 cm.ISBN: 0140620567 .Subject(s): English fiction | Conspiracies -- Fiction | Anarchists -- Fiction | Bombings -- Fiction | London (England) -- FictionDDC classification: 823.912Item type | Current library | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
General Lending | MTU Bishopstown Library Lending | 823.912 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 00021621 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Weaves around an attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894 masterminded by Verloc, a Russian spy working for the police, and ostensibly a member of an anarchist group in Soho.
The Secret Agent communicates a profoundly ironic view of human affairs. The story is woven around an attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894 masterminded by Verloc, a Russian spy, working for the police, and ostensibly a member of an anarchist group in Soho. His masters instruct him to discredit the anarchists in a humiliating fashion, and when his evil plan goes horribly awry, Verlac must deal with the repercussions of his actions.
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Library Journal Review
In 1894, the year Polish-born Conrad settled in England, a failed attempt to blow up the Greenwich Observatory left an alleged anarchist blown up instead. With such spare facts for inspiration, Conrad crafted this London-based story of political intrigue, police duplicity, familial discord, and ubiquitous corruption. Composed of long, intense encounters between two or three characters, this relentlessly dark tale is fueled by vitriolic contempt for its participants. Viewed by some critics as Conrad's best, it contains some of his most voluble prose and has been adapted by Alfred Hitchcock (Sabotage), by British television, and into a forthcoming film with Gerard Depardieu in the title role. This program, narrated with sharp insight and full dramatic power by British actor David Threlfall, is superior to previous audio renditions and is the best way to enjoy the full measure of Conrad's achievement. Highly recommended.Peter Josyph, New York(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.CHOICE Review
Scholars and others deeply interested in the works of Joseph Conrad will be grateful for the recent edition of The Secret Agent, which is part of the Cambridge edition of Conrad's works. An authoritative text is supplemented by information about the range of alterations made by the author, from the serial publication in Ridgeway's to the eventual publication as a book in 1907. The changes, which include consistent decisions to increase the ironic distance and detachment of the narrative, are full of interest to those both knowledgeable and serious about Joseph Conrad's style and development. Many of the textual notes, however, are much more technical and of narrower interest. In general, this edition will be welcome to scholars and a useful resource to readers already deeply interested in Conrad. -R. Nadelhaft, University of Maine at OronoAuthor notes provided by Syndetics
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.
(Bowker Author Biography)