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This Wordsworth Edition includes an exclusive Introduction and Notes by Hugh Epstein, Secretary of the Joseph Conrad Society of Great Britain.
<p align="center"> 'Then the vision of an enormous town presented itself, of a monstrous town...a cruel devourer of the world's light. There was room enough there to place any story, depth enough for any passion, variety enough there for any setting, darkness enough to bury five millions of lives.'Conrad’s ‘monstrous town’ is London, and his story of espionage and counter-espionage, anarchists and embassies, is a detective story that becomes the story of Winnie Verloc’s tenacity in maintaining her devotion to her peculiar and simple-minded brother, Stevie, as they pursue their very ordinary lives above a rather dubious shop in the back streets of Soho. However, far from offering any sentimental picture, The Secret Agent is Conrad’s funniest novel. Its savagely witty picture of human absurdity and misunderstanding is written in an ironic style that provokes laughter and unease at the same time, and that continues to provide one of the most disturbing visions of aspiration and futility in twentieth century literature.
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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At times "The Secret Agent" is a little heavy-going - a section near the middle of the book discussing the Assistant Commissioner of Police and a Chief Inspector enlightens us as to these characters but the circular nature of their conversations grates a little and I felt anxious for the action to return to the far more interesting Mr. Verloc & family. Indeed in Verloc, his wife, brother - and mother - in law, Conrad creates entirely credible, very human characters, and their pain is conveyed to the reader in a manner which made me think: "Yes, that's exactly what people are like."
The ending of the book is a little predictable, but skillfully executed. My major criticism would be the depiction of the shadowy revolutionists - I was never quite sure what they were rebelling against, or why, and they were not as credible as the other characters. This, however, may have been Conrad's aim.
On the whole, an original story which is at times very involving. It also has some very funny moments which are usually quite unexpected, but which seem to work, nonetheless.
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