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The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale (Penguin Popular Classics) (Paperback)

by Joseph Conrad (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
Price: £2.00 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Product details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Classics; New Ed edition (27 Sep 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0140620567
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140620566
  • Product Dimensions: 17.6 x 11.2 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 37,689 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #5 in  Books > Fiction > 20th Century Classics > Conrad, Joseph

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Product Description

Product Description

In the only novel Conrad set in London, "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.


About the Author

Joseph Conrad was born in the Ukraine in 1857 and grew up under Tsarist autocracy. In 1874 Conrad travelled to Marseilles, where he served in French merchant vessels before joining a British ship in 1878 as an apprentice. In 1886 he obtained British nationality. Eight years later he left the sea to devote himself to writing, publishing his first novel, <I>Almayer's Folly</I>, in 1895. The following year he settled in Kent, where he produced within fifteen years such modern classics as <I>Youth, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Typhoon, Nostromo, The Secret Agent</I> and <I>Under Western Eyes</I>. He continued to write until his death in 1924.
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Customer Reviews

15 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Passage to Blighty, 16 May 2001
By A Customer
E.M. Forster apparently said something to the effect that Conrad's London in 'The Secret Agent' was too dark a place: a foreigners projection of European anxieties onto, in reality, a far more benevolent scene. It's true, Conrad's vision of England's capital is dark, but you'd have to say that it is no darker than, say, moments in Dickens', or even T.S. Eliot's 'Wasteland'. Developments in both the world of Crime Thrillers, and in the reality of terrorism and espionage suggest that Conrad was certainly onto something. Indeed, many now current clichés of the genre can be seen to originate from Conrad's book: mainly that the criminal and the policeman; the terrorist and the 'keeper of the peace' are not worlds apart. Few contemporary writers, however, are quite as keen and scrupulous as Conrad, who is never shy of taking us into the deepest and darkest places in the modern political psyche. Conrad's prose is as intensely atmospheric, as psychologically penetrating, and as layered with ironies as anything you will read in English. Sometimes it takes an 'outsider view' to tell you hard things about your beloved little Island. You won't get Merchant Ivory touching Conrad.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Clever and involving story of "terrorist" action gone wrong, 5 Dec 2000
By A Customer
Verloc is an Embassy spy in London at the end of the nineteenth century, who is informed by his (rather shady) employers that it is time he earned his pay by doing more than just submitting reports. The choice of action he chooses to appease those at the Embassy forms the basis of the book, and we see how other characters are affected by what he decides.

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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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Not all that simple, 10 Jan 2007
By Jonathan Birch (Manchester) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
Conrad's prose is dense, difficult and gorgeous. Before you pick up a book like this, you need to prepare yourself for an author who will happily write eight pages or so of prose between two lines in a conversation and not apologise (in fact there is, as is customary for Conrad, a self-justifying foreword). Patience will reward you with a surprising and darkly humorous tale of anarchists learning that real sources of chaos, anarchy and violence have little to do with abstract ideas.

It's not much like Heart of Darkness. Heart of Darkness is perhaps more important in the history of literature, but this is bigger, richer and more enjoyable. Read both.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A fine piece of work
Although this novel is a departure from the tropical localities of his other classics,it is still a masterpiece of prose and vocabulary and reading it can only strengthen your... Read more
Published 1 month ago by nicholas hargreaves

2.0 out of 5 stars Ran out of steam
According to Mr Conrad himself this is not one his best works and I have to agree with him. Although based in London there is very little feel of the place and it really could... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Officer Dibble

5.0 out of 5 stars Conrad's Finest Novel
According to many this is Conrad's best work and I have to agree. This is a superb novel which shows Conrad at his best. Read more
Published 5 months ago by I. M. Knight

4.0 out of 5 stars A favourite classic
For some years, this intriguing novel has been a favourite of mine. Conrad leads the reader through a cunning series of plots and subplots, all the while creating an atmosphere of... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Mr. D. A. F. Weaver

2.0 out of 5 stars Precisely too many words
I read another review that describes Conrad's prose as dense, difficult and gorgeous. I'm not sure about the last adjective. This is Conrad at his most dense and difficult. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Greshon

4.0 out of 5 stars The human side of the underworld
Conrad leads us into 19th Century London, allowing us an immersion into an underground world of anarchists and the strings pulling on them. Read more
Published on 29 Oct 2005 by Natasha Arora

5.0 out of 5 stars The foundation of black comedy thrillers
The only novel that Conrad set in London and a departure from his standard naval works, never the less this dark satire from 1907 has set itself as the cornerstone for black... Read more
Published on 14 May 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece of imaginative construction and execution
This is Conrad proving that he is undoubtedly one of the greatest writers of all time, and an equally impressive storyteller. Read more
Published on 5 April 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars The term "intrigue" actually means something here
Tired of the cookie-cutter characters and ridiculous dialogue in Grisham and Clancy? Bewildered by their almost complete ignorance of human psychology? Read more
Published on 19 Aug 1999

2.0 out of 5 stars Details galore
Conrad's book has a very good idea and I respect that. However throughout the book Conrad insists on describing things with twenty adjectives or more. Read more
Published on 24 Mar 1999

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