Recommended reading: Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad (1899)

 

Heart of Darkness

by Joseph Conrad.
 
Mass Market Paperback
First published 1899.
Published by Penguin Books.

ISBN 13: 9780140431681
ISBN 10: 0140431683
ASIN: B001KTM47C
 
Author Joseph Conrad based this novella on his own personal experiences, during a voyage up the Congo River in 1890.
 
This novella was the inspiration for the movie Apocalypse Now (1979), directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
 
Description:
 
Written in the last year of the nineteenth century, Heart of Darkness can be seen in many ways as the first twentieth-century novel.
 
Its climate of doubt and vagueness, its loss of moral confidence and its need for belief in the midst of spiritual wilderness, its exploration of the subconscious and its affirmation of individual freedom are all themes that were to have an influence on writers such as Orwell, Godling Céline, Borges and Eliot.
 
In Heart of Darkness Conrad unfolds the story of Marlow’s search for Mr Kurtz, the company agent whose ‘unlawful soul’ has been ‘beguiled beyond the bounds of permitted aspirations’ in his dealings with the natives of the Belgian Congo. Marlow’s adventure involves him in a crucial reappraisal of his own values. It is Kurtz, however, who attains to a vision of the inexpressible, terrifying reality of the heart in this extraordinary exploration of human savagery and despair.
 
Book cover image: The Steamer Stanley, by F. Hens.

Born on this day – Joseph Conrad:

Joseph Conrad

Writer

December 3, 1857 – August 3, 1924

Credits:

The Lingard Trilogy: Almayer's Folly (1895), An Outcast of the Islands (1896), The Idiots (1896); An Outpost of Progress (1897); Tales of Unrest (1898); Typhoon (1902); Youth, a Narrative (1902); The Tale (1919); The Rescue (1920); The Shifting of the Fire (1892); Lord Jim (1900); Romance (1900); The Inheritors (1901); Heart of Darkness (1902); Nostromo (1904); One Day More (1905); The Mirror of the Sea (1906); The Secret Agent (1907); The Point of Honor (aka The Duel) (1908); A Set of Six (1908); The Brute (1908); The Nature of Crime (1909); The Secret Sharer (1910); The Smile of Fortune (1911); Under Western Eyes (1911); 'Twixt Land and Sea (1912); A Personal Record (1912); Some Reminiscences (1912); Chance (1913); The Inn of the Two Witches (1913); Victory (1915); Within the Tides (1915); The Shadow Line (1917); The Arrow of Gold (1919); The Black Mate (1922); The Rover (1923); Laughing Anne and One Day More (1924); Tales of Hearsay (1925); Suspense (1925); Last Essays (1926); Letters: Joseph Conrad to Richard Curle (1928); Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror 1st Series (1928); The Mammoth Book of Thrillers, Ghosts and Mysteries (1936); The Tremolino (1942); And the Darkness Falls (1946); Heart of Darkness / The Secret Sharer (1950); Tales of Land and Sea (1953); Twentieth Century Short Stories (1959); The Portable Conrad (1961); Conrad's Manifesto (1966); Points of View (1966); The 4th Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories (1969); Great British Short Stories (1974); Kurt Singer's Gothic Horror Book (1974); A Little Night Reading (1974); A Century of Short Stories (1977); Congo Diary and Other Uncollected Pieces (1978); Favourite Spy Stories (1981); The World's Library of Best Books Volume One (1988); The Return (2004); Youth / Heart of Darkness / End of the Tether (2010); The Heart of Darkness & Other Stories (2018); An Outpost of Progress and Other Stories (2019); The End of the Tether: and Other Tales (2022); The Lagoon (2023).

Movies and television:

Almayer's Folly (2011); An Outpost of Progress (1982 / 2016); Apocalypse Now (1979); Apocalypse Oz (2006); Art Carney Special (1960); Au bout du rouleau (1973 / 2002); BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (1950); Caracas (2024); Centre Play (1975); Cineficción Radio (2020); Con gli occhi dell'occidente (1979); Conrad (1994); Dangerous Paradise (1930); Dans une île perdue (1931); Der heimliche Teilhaber (1965); Devil's Paradise (1987); El corazón del bosque (1979); Face to Face (1952); Farornas paradis (1931); Film socialisme (2010); Folio (1957); Freya des sept îles (1973); Gabrielle (2005); Grossesse nerveuse (1993); Hadí plyn (2023); Heart of Darkness (1993 / 2019 / 2023 / 2024); Il Corsaro (1985); ITV Play of the Week (1959); ITV Television Playhouse (1960); Jej powrót (1975); Joseph Conrad's the Return (2014); La folie Almayer (1973); La ligne d'ombre (1973); La riva dei bruti (1931); L'agente segreto (1978); Laughing Anne (1953); Le roman du samedi (1981); Lone Wolf (2021); Lord Jim (1925 / 1965); Mashup at the Movies (2021); Nachricht aus Colebrook (1971); Naufragio (1978); Niebezpieczny raj (1931); Nostromo (1996–1997); Outcast of the Islands (1951); PaulWesNick (2019); Playhouse 90 (1958); Road Book (2021); Robert Montgomery Presents (1952–1956); Sabotage (1936); Schlitz Playhouse (1954); Secret Sharer (2014); Siesta Z (2017); Spec Ops: The Line (2012); Star Tonight (1955); Startime (1959); Sutra (1967); Swept from the Sea (1997); Tajný agent (2020); Teatr Polskiego Radia / Podcast Series (2004–2024); Teledrama (1957); Television Theater (1958–2017); The Duellists (1977); The DuPont Show of the Week (1962); The Ford Theatre Hour (1950–1951); The Golden Twenties (1950); The Lost Valley (2017); The Madhouse on Castle Street / BBC Sunday-Night Play (1963); The Rescue (1929); The Road to Romance (1927); The Rover (1967); The Secret Agent (1967 / 1975 / 1992 / 1996 / 2016); The Secret Sharer (1973); The Shadow Line (1976); The Silver Treasure (1926); The Young One (2016); Tropennächte (1931); Un reietto delle isole (1980); Under Western Eyes (1936 / 1962 / 1975); Victory (1919 / 1940 / 1945 / 1996); Windigo (1994).

Joseph Conrad, on writing:

 

My task, which I am trying to achieve is,

by the power of the written word,
to make you hear, to make you feel -
it is, before all, to make you see.
- Joseph Conrad.