Heart of Darkness
Assigned by 3 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1899
- Form
- Novel
- Language
- English
- Length
- Short · 110 ppunder 120 pages
- Difficulty
- Demanding3 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendHeart of Darkness and The Congo DiaryPenguin Classics, 2007Owen Knowles's edition, with Conrad's own Congo diary and notes on the historical background.
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On a yawl anchored in the Thames, the seaman Marlow tells four companions of his journey as a steamboat captain up a great African river, unnamed but recognisably the Congo, for a Belgian trading company. Passing stations where the ivory trade has reduced Africans to chained labour and dying shades, he grows obsessed with Kurtz, the company's most successful agent, whom he finds at the Inner Station worshipped by the people he has terrorised, his hut ringed with heads. Kurtz dies on the voyage down with the words The horror, the horror. Marlow lies to Kurtz's fiancée about them.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Heart of Darkness are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
