Penguin The Shadow-Line Конрад Джозеф

The Penguin English Library Edition of The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad • 'Madness and despair! Give me that for a lever, and I'll move the world' • 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 • The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction written in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels, to the beginning of the First World War

The Secret Agent is Joseph Conrad's dark satire on English society, edited with an introduction and notes by Michael Newton in Penguin Classics • 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, Verloc must deal with the repercussions of his actions. While rooted in the Edwardian period, Conrad's tale remains strikingly contemporary, with its depiction of Londoners gripped by fear of the terrorists living in their midst

A haunting Modernist masterpiece and the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's Oscar-winning film Apocalypse Now, Heart of Darkness explores the limits of human experience and the nightmarish realities of imperialism • Conrad's narrator Marlow, a seaman and wanderer, recounts his physical and psychological journey in search of the infamous ivory trader Kurtz: dying, insane, and guilty of unspeakable atrocities. Travelling upriver to the heart of the African continent, he gradually becomes obsessed by this enigmatic, wraith-like figure. Marlow's discovery of how Kurtz has gained his position of power over the local people involves him in a radical questioning, not only of his own nature and values, but also those of western civilisation • Part of a major series of new editions of Conrad's most famous works in Penguin Classics, this volume contains Conrad's Congo Diary, a chronology, further reading, notes, a map of the Congo, a glossary and an introduction discussing the author's experiences in Africa, the narrative and symbolic complexities of Heart of Darkness and critical responses to the novel

'Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire.' • Marlow, a seaman, tells of a journey up the Congo. His goal is the troubled European and ivory trader Kurtz. Worshipped and feared by invaders as well as natives, Kurtz has become a godlike figure, his presence pervading the jungle like a thick, obscuring mist. As his boat labours further upstream, closer and closer to Kurtz's extraordinary and terrible domain, so Marlow finds his faith in himself and civilization crumbling

'It was I who removed de P- this morning.' With these chilling words Victor Haldin shatters the solitary, industrious existence of Razumov, his fellow student at St Petersburg University. Razumov aims to overcome the denial of his noble birth by a brilliant career in the tsarist bureaucracy created by Peter the Great. But in pre-revolutionary Russia Peter's legacy is autocracy tempered by assassination; and Razumov is soon caught in a tragic web with Haldin's trustful sister Natalia in spy-haunted Geneva. Their fateful story is told by an elderly Englishman who loves Natalia but plays his part of a 'dense Westerner' to the end

A new translation of this gripping domestic tragedy, set in Simenon's very own neighbourhood • One by one the lighted windows went dark. The silhouette of the dead man could still be seen through the frosted glass like a Chinese shadow puppet. A taxi pulled up. It wasn't the public prosecutor yet. A young woman crossed the courtyard with hurried steps, leaving a whiff of perfume in her wake • Summoned to the dimly-lit Place des Vosges one night, where he sees shadowy figures at apartment windows, Maigret uncovers a tragic story of desperate lives, unhappy families, addiction and a terrible, fatal greed • Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations. This novel has been published in previous translations as Maigret Mystified and The Shadow in the Courtyard

The victim was your friend • It was just a silly game to start with. Paul never really believed in it • He never dreamed Charlie would take it so far • So was the murderer • For twenty years, Paul's tried to put his past behind him, but now his mother is dying, and he can't run any longer • But home isn't just full of bad memories. It's also the last place anyone saw Charlie alive • And Paul starts to wonder if Charlie might come back to finish what he started

If it had happened to you, you would have run away too • Twenty-five years ago, Paul's friend Charlie Crabtree brutally killed their classmate - and then vanished without a trace • Paul's never forgiven himself for his part in what happened. He's never gone back home • Until his elderly mother has a fall. It's finally time to stop running • It's not long before things start to go wrong. His mother claims there's someone in the house. Paul realises someone is following him. And, in a town many miles away, a copycat killer has struck • Which makes him wonder - what really happened to Charlie the day of the murder? • And can anyone stop it happening again?

"Чудовищный город" Конрада - Лондон, а его история о шпионаже и контршпионаже, анархистах и посольствах - детективная история это становится историей упорства Винни Верлок в сохранении своей преданности своему странному и простодушному брату Стиви, в то время как они ведут свою самую обычную жизнь над довольно сомнительным магазином на задворках Сохо. Однако "Секретный агент" - самый смешной роман Джозефа Конрада, далекий от сентиментальной картины. Его жестоко остроумная картина человеческого абсурда и непонимания написана в ироничном стиле, который вызывает смех и беспокойство одновременно, и который продолжает представлять одно из самых тревожных видений стремления и тщетности в литературе двадцатого века • Книга на английском языке • 'Then the vision of an enormous town presented itself, of a monstrous town

В "Тайном агенте" выведен завербованный посольством одной восточной державы (подразумевается Российская империя) человек лондонского "подполья", вынужденный под давлением своего "куратора" из посольства организовать взрыв Королевской обсерватории в Гринвиче - ради международной борьбы с террором изобразить покушение на сами основы западной цивилизации и науки. Конрад подробно описывает, как полиция идет по следу преступника и какие коллизии возникают среди самих полицейских чинов в связи с раскрытием этой тайны; сочными красками рисует портреты анархистов, семейную трагедию заглавного персонажа, который оказывается характерным конрадовским двойником: одновременно и антигероем, и героем "наоборот". Этот утонченно-психологический роман нередко считается наиболее ярким сатирическим произведением Джозефа Конрада, он пронизан иронией и черным юмором

Published in 1907, Conrad's compelling tale of anarchy, espionage and violence is set in the seedy back streets of Victorian London where Adolf Verloc, a shopkeeper who is also a secret agent, is assigned the task of blowing up the Greenwich Observatory