Inspired by an actual terrorist attack on Greenwich Laboratory in 1894 ‘The Secret Agent’ is arguably Conrad’s greatest work.

The subtitle ‘A Simple Tale’ is deliberately ironic although the story is indeed more accessible than most of the author’s other writing and despite one time shift, which adds to the suspense, is easily followed to its bitter, gruesome end.

Mr Verloc, the spy, is roused to action by his masters. He is to instigate an act ‘of destructive ferocity so absurd as to be incomprehensible, inexplicable, almost unthinkable; in fact, mad’.

All does not run smoothly however and leads to Mr Verloc’s wife, Winnie, demonstrating how narrow the gap is between rational behaviour and frenzied destruction.

Setting his story in a subterranean grimy London peopled by deceptive, dishonourable characters, Conrad not only reminds us of the futility of mindless aggression but also of how near violence is to the surface of human behaviour.

Collection	Narrator	Length
Edwardian	Peter Joyce	11 hrs 50 mins

Media	Compact Disc
Media Qty	10
Audio Format	CD-DA
Book Code	ED-217CD
ISBN	978 1 86015 075 3
Price	£25.99

Joseph Conrad (1857 – 1924), was born in the Ukraine, in a region that had once been a part of Poland, but was then under Russian rule. His father was an aristocrat without lands, a poet and translator of Shakespeare and Dickens and French literature. The family estates had been sequestrated in 1839 following an anti-Russian rebellion. As a boy Joseph read Polish and French versions of English novels with his father. English was Conrad's third language; he learned to read and write in French before he knew English. His father became embroiled in political activities. After being imprisoned for six months, he was sent to exile with his family to Volgoda, northern Russia, in 1861. Two years later the family was allowed to move to Kiev.

By 1869 Conrad's both parents had died of tuberculosis, and he was sent to Switzerland to his maternal uncle, who was to be a continuing influence on his life. Conrad attended schools in Kraków and persuaded his uncle to let him go to the sea. In the mid-1870s he joined the French merchant marine as an apprentice, and made a number of voyages to the West Indies. During his youth Conrad also was involved in arms smuggling for the Carlist cause in Spain.

After being wounded Conrad continued his career at the seas in the British merchant navy for 16 years. He rose through the ranks from common seaman to commanding his own ship. He was given British citizenship and changed his name to Joseph Conrad. Conrad sailed to many parts of the world and witnessing the forces of the sea, Conrad developed a deterministic view of the world. During the long journeys he had started to write and he decided to devote himself entirely to literature. By 1894. After his uncle’s death in 1894 he was left about £1,600 a sizable sum (well over £100,000 now). Conrad's sea life was over.

At the age of 36 Conrad settled down in England. In 1896 he married Jessie George, an Englishwoman, by whom he had two sons. He moved to Ashford, Kent. The last years of his life were shadowed by rheumatism. He refused an offer of knighthood in 1924 as he had earlier declined honorary degrees from five universities. Conrad died of a heart attack on August 3, 1924 and was buried in Canterbury.

Click here to find out more about Joseph Conrad.

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