The Secret Agent (1907) is a compelling tale of espionage and terrorism set in Edwardian London. Ironically subtitled 'A Simple Tale', it paints a terrifying portrait of revolutionaries and anarchists whose personal lives are as barren and futile as their public acts of violence. It concludes with the unwitting accomplice of a would-be terrorist blowing himself to bits with his own bomb, the terrorist's subsequent murder by his own wife, and the wife's own suicide. This new edition is based on a painstaking comparison of the original manuscript of the work with its first, truncated appearance in the American magazine Ridgeway's: A Militant Weekly for God and Country, and with all subsequent book-form publications overseen by Conrad himself. The result is a new text, purged of the printers' errors and editorial interventions that have been reproduced in all previous printings. There is also a critical introduction, an essay on the text, a textual apparatus, and helpful explanatory notes.
| ISBN: | 9781107298903 |
| Publication date: | 25th May 1990 |
| Author: | Conrad, Joseph |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Format: | Ebook (PDF) |