Joseph Conrad (originally Józef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski) was born in the Ukraine in 1857 and grew up under Tsarist autocracy. In 1896 he settled in Kent, where he produced within fifteen years such modern classics as Youth, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Typhoon, Nostromo, The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes. He continued to write until his death in 1924. Today Conrad is generally regarded as one of the greatest writers of fiction in English—his third language.

Michael Gorra is a professor of English at Smith College. His books include The Bells in Their Silence: Travels Through Germany and After Empire: Scott, Naipaul, Rushdie. His book, Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece (2012), was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography.

I. A Calm and a Storm

The Secret Sharer: An Episode from the Coast
Preface to The Nigger of the "Narcissus"
The Nigger of the "Narcissus": A Tale of the Sea

II. Three Stories

Karain: A Memory
Amy Foster
The Warrior's Soul

III. Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness

IV. The Secret Agent

Author's Note
The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale

V. Essays, Autobiography, and Letters

Autocracy and War
Some Reflections on the Loss of the Titanic
FROM The Mirror of the Sea, "Initiation"
FROM A Personal Record
Letters
To Marguerite Poradowska, 26 September 1890
To Carol Zagorski, 10 March 1896
To R. B. Cunninghame Graham, 20 December 1897
To Edward Garnett, 29 March 1898
To John Galsworthy, 12 March 1899
To R. B. Cunninghame Graham, 14 October 1899
To William Blackwood, 31 May 1902
To Roger Casement, 21 December 1903
To William Rothenstein, 3 September 1904
To J. B. Pinker, 30 July 1907
To J. B. Pinker, 16? July 1908
To Edward Garnett, 27 May 1912
To John Quinn, January 1917
To John Quinn, 6 February 1918
To Hugh Walpole, 10 February 1922
To C. K. Scott Moncrieff, 17 December 1922

Suggestions for Further Reading