The Secret Agent

A Simple Tale

Joseph Conrad, Peter Mallios, Robert D. Kaplan

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English

Modern Library Inc
14 December 2004

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Series: Modern Library 100 Best Novels

UNIQUE FEATURES- New Introduction by Robert Kaplan, Edited, with Notes, A Note on the Text and Bibliography by Prof. Peter Lancelot Mallios (U of Maryland), reading group guide.

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time

Edited and with Notes by Peter Lancelot Mallios Introduction by Robert D. Kaplan

In reexamining The Secret Agent in a post-9/11 world, Robert D. Kaplan praises Joseph Conrad's ""surgical insight into the mechanics of terrorism,"" calling the book ""a fine example of how a savvy novelist may detect the future long before a social scientist does.""

This intense 1907 thriller-a precursor to works by Graham Greene and John le Carre-concerns a British double agent who infiltrates a cabal of anarchists. Conrad explores political and criminal intrigue in a modern society, building to a climax that the critic F. R. Leavis deemed ""one of the most astonishing triumphs of genius in fiction.""

By: Joseph Conrad
Introduction by: Robert D. Kaplan
Edited by: Peter Mallios
Imprint: Modern Library Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 202mm, Width: 132mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 262g
ISBN: 9780812973051
ISBN 10: 0812973054
Series: Modern Library 100 Best Novels
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 14 December 2004
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) grew up amid political unrest in Russian-occupied Poland. After twenty years at sea with the French and British merchant navies, he settled in England in 1894. Over the next three decades he revolutionized the English novel with works such as Typhoon (1902), Youth (1902), Nostromo (1904), The Secret Agent (1907), Under Western Eyes (1911), Chance (1913), and Victory (1915).

Reviews for The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale

The Secret Agent is an astonishing book. It is one of the best--and certainly the most significant--detective stories ever written. --Ford Madox Ford The Secret Agent is an altogether thrilling 'crime story' . . . a political novel of a foreign embassy intrigue and its tragic human outcome. --Thomas Mann One of Conrad's supreme masterpieces. --F. R. Leavis [The Secret Agent] was in effect the world's first political thriller--spies, conspirators, wily policemen, murders, bombings . . . Conrad was also giving artistic expression to his domestic anxieties--his overweight wife and problem child, his lack of money, his inactivity, his discomfort in London, his uneasiness in English society, his sense of exile, of being an alien . . . The novel has the perverse logic and derangement of a dream. --from the Introduction to the Everyman's Library edition by Paul Theroux The Secret Agent is an astonishing book. It is one of the best and certainly the most significant detective stories ever written. Ford Madox Ford The Secret Agent is an altogether thrilling crime story . . . a political novel of a foreign embassy intrigue and its tragic human outcome. Thomas Mann One of Conrad s supreme masterpieces. F. R. Leavis [ The Secret Agent ] was in effect the world s first political thriller spies, conspirators, wily policemen, murders, bombings . . . Conrad was also giving artistic expression to his domestic anxieties his overweight wife and problem child, his lack of money, his inactivity, his discomfort in London, his uneasiness in English society, his sense of exile, of being an alien . . . The novel has the perverse logic and derangement of a dream. from the Introduction to the Everyman's Library edition by Paul Theroux