Heart of Darkness

"It had become a place of darkness. But there was in it one river especially, a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land ... it fascinated me as a snake would a bird-a silly little bird." Marlow decided to follow the snake. It would lead him to Mr Kurtz, a troubled European gone native, and was feared and revered like a god. Conrad himself had served on a Belgian steamer on the Congo River and he found inspiration for "Heart of Darkness" in his travel journals. This enigmatic novel features on almost every top hundred list.

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) was a Polish-born British writer who ranks amongst the greatest of all English novelists and stylists.