The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale (Signet Classics) - Softcover

Joseph Conrad

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451530500 ISBN 13: 9780451530509

Publisher: Signet Classics, 2012

Synopsis

The Secret Agent is the unsurpassed ancestor of a long series of twentieth-century novels andfilms which explore the confused motives that lie at the heart of political terrorism. In its use of powerful psychological insight to intensify narrative suspense, it set the terms by which subsequent works in its genre were created. Conrad was the first novelist to discover the strange in-between territory of the political exile, and his genius was such that we still have no truer map of that region's moral terrain than his story of a terrorist plot and its tragic consequences for the guilty and innocent alike.Introduction by Paul Theroux

About this title

Review:

"An outstanding edition. First-time readers will welcome the eloquent introductory essay, which places The Secret Agent in the context of both Victorianism and modernism, as well as the very useful supplementary materials on anarchism and degeneration. And those already familiar with the novel will be prompted to re-read it in light of Agathocleous's claim that Conrad, along with his New Woman contemporaries, is exploring marriage and the condition of women as well." --Amanda Claybaugh, Columbia University

Book Description:

'Spookily topical' - Guardian

About this edition

• Publisher: Signet Classics
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0451530500
• ISBN 13: 9780451530509
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 258