The Secret Agent

Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford's collaborative work, The Nature of a Crime is a study of human psychology. Delving into the darkest recesses of human mind, they present idiosyncratic characters fighting with their own overwhelming desires and intuitions. The deep love of the protagonist gives way to even more profound desperation. The feelings of the protagonist, as life is crumbles around him, are expressed profoundly by the two authors.

"Гаспар Руис" - один из самых известных рассказов классика английской литературы Джозефа Конрада, в котором на глазах читателя разворачивается история молодого человека, решившего кардинально изменить свою жизнь и встать на путь к свету. Запоминающееся прекрасной ироничностью, это произведение наиболее полно отражает способность человека к самообману и остаётся актуальным в XXI веке. Читайте зарубежную литературу в оригинале!

Haunted by the memory of a moment of lost nerve during a disastrous voyage, Jim submits to condemnation by a Court of Inquiry. In the wake of his disgrace he travels to the exotic region of Patusan, and as the agent at this remote trading post comes to be revered as 'Tuan Jim.' Here he finds a measure of serenity and respect within himself. However, when a gang of thieves arrives on the island, the memory of his earlier disgrace comes again to the fore, and his relationship with the people of...

The Shadow-Line is based upon events and experiences from twenty-seven years earlier to which Conrad returned obsessively in his fiction. A young sea captain's first command brings with it a succession of crises: his sea is becalmed, the crew laid low by fever, and his deranged first mate is convinced that the ship is haunted by the malignant spirit of a previous captain. The novella is notable for its dual narrative structure.

These works are unique in Conrad's oeuvre in being openly autobiographical - but in scope and literary form they differ widely. In The Mirror Conrad explores his vast knowledge of the sea in an era when the sailing ship gave way, after thousands of years, to steam. A Personal Record is Conrad's account of himself, his cultural background, and the central motives in his life as a seaman and a writer separated from the country where he was born.

Civil war rages between the native tribes of the Malay straits. Captain Tim Wingard sides with the Rajah Hassim.An English yacht blunders into this confusion and runs aground. When Wingard goes aboard to offer assistance, the crew gives him insolence, not gratitude. He prepares to leave...then sees a woman. She captivates him, literally holds him spellbound. It is a spell that soon wrecks all his hopes and leads to the failure of the important cause to which he is bound.