Sources

Adams, Richard. Heart of Darkness. London: Penguin, 1991.

Bloom, Harold, ed. Marlow. New York: Chelsea House, 1992.

Burden, Robert. Heart of Darkness. London: Macmillan Educational, 1991.

Clifford, Hugh. Review in The Spectator, November 29, 1902.

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Penguin, 1999.

---. Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer. New York: Bantam Books, 1981.

---. The Nigger of the Narcissus. New York: Dell Publishing Company, Inc., 1960.

Dean, Leonard F., ed. Joseph Conrad's ‘‘Heart of Darkness’’: Backgrounds and Criticisms. Prentice-Hall, 1960.

Garnett, Edward. Conrad: The Critical Heritage, edited by Norman Sherry. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973, pp. 131-33.

Glassman, Peter J. Language and Being: Joseph Conrad and the Literature of Personality. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976.

Guerard, Albert J. Introduction to Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer. Signet Books/New American Library, 1950.

Guetti, James L. The Limits of Metaphor: A Study of Melville, Conrad and Faulkner. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967.

Gurko, Leo. Joseph Conrad: Giant in Exile. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1962.

Hawkins, Hunt, and Brian Shaffer, eds. Approaches to Teaching Conrad's ‘‘Heart of Darkness’’ and ‘‘The Secret Sharer’’. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2002.

Hay, Eloise Knapp. The Political Novels of Joseph Conrad. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963.

Karl, Frederick R. Joseph Conrad: The Three Lives. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1979.

Karl, Frederick R., and Marvin Magalaner. A Reader's Guide to Twentieth-Century English Novels. New York: Octagon Books, 1984.

Leondopoulos, Jordan. Still the Moving World: Intolerance Modernism and Heart of Darkness. New York: P. Lang, 1991.

London, Bette Lynn. The Appropriated Voice: Narrative Authority in Conrad, Forster, and Woolf. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1990.

Parry, Benita. Conrad and Imperialism. New York: Macmillan, 1983.

Pecora, Vincent P. Self and Form in Modern Narrative. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.

Schwarz, Daniel R. Rereading Joseph Conrad. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2000.

Watt, Ian. Essays on Conrad. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Widmer, Kingsley. ‘‘Joseph Conrad,’’ in Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography, Volume 5: Late Victorian and Edwardian Writers, 1890-1914. Gale Research, 1992, pp. 84-122.

Further Reading

Glassman, Peter J. Language and Being: Joseph Conrad and the Literature of Personality. Columbia University Press, 1976. Chapter 6 presents a philosophically nuanced argument about the relationship between language and death in Heart of Darkness.

Hay, Eloise Knapp. The Political Novels of Joseph Conrad. University of Chicago Press, 1963, pp. 107-61. The author connects the political aspects of Heart of Darkness to its stylistic elements.

Hewitt, Douglas. Conrad: A Reassessment. Bowes, 1952. Chapter 2 examines Heart of Darkness alongside other early stories featuring Marlow as the narrator.

Land, Stephen K. Paradox and Polarity in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad. St. Martin's Press, 1984. This 311-page book offers a critical analysis of several of Conrad's works, including Heart of Darkness and Nostromo, with a focus on the Conradian hero.

Meyer, Bernard. Joseph Conrad: A Psychoanalytic Biography. Princeton University Press, 1967, pp. 168-84. Chapter 9 addresses Heart of Darkness within the broader context of a psychoanalytic interpretation of the relationship between Conrad's life and his fiction.

Parry, Benita. Conrad and Imperialism. Macmillan, 1983, pp. 20-39. The author presents an argument about Conrad's complex relationship with European colonialism. Chapter 2 specifically addresses Heart of Darkness.

Sherry, Norman. Conrad: The Critical Heritage. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973. This book is a compilation of contemporary reviews of Conrad's work and includes ten reviews of Heart of Darkness.

Teets, Bruce E., and Helmut E. Gerber. Joseph Conrad: An Annotated Bibliography of Writings About Him. Northern Illinois University Press, 1971. This is a highly valuable bibliography of Conrad criticism, covering everything from contemporary reviews to more recent critical studies and articles.

Watts, Cedric. A Preface to Conrad. Longman, 1982. This book elucidates the recurring themes in Conrad's work. It focuses more broadly on Conrad's ideas rather than providing an analysis of Heart of Darkness or any individual work.

His debut novels, Almayer's Folly (1895) and An Outcast of the Islands (1896), established Conrad as a keen observer of individuals under pressure, portraying self-destructive outsiders in opulent yet deteriorating settings. The Nigger of the "Narcissus", Conrad's first novel set aboard a ship, portrays a crew grappling with moral dilemmas and striving to survive a fierce storm at sea. Lord Jim, widely regarded as the pinnacle of his early work, introduced Marlow, Conrad's well-known narrator and alter-ego, and marked the beginning of the author's experimentation with chronology, narrative structure, and intricate plotting.

In his later period, starting with the publication of "The Secret Sharer" and Chance in 1913, Conrad gained public acclaim with his novels Victory and The Shadow-Line (1917). Victory offers a Dickensian exploration of themes such as evil, idealism, and isolation. The Shadow-Line revisits themes Conrad had previously explored in "The Secret Sharer" and Lord Jim—the moral journey into maturity.

The film Apocalypse Now (1979) adapts Heart of Darkness to the military context of Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Innovative and gripping, the film sparked significant critical and public debate. Taking four years to complete with a $30 million budget, it garnered extensive publicity both before and after its release. Director Francis Ford Coppola, who also produced The Godfather, approached the material as art rather than focusing on the Vietnam War's social injustices, which angered some viewers. Marlon Brando starred as Col. Walter E. Kurtz, Martin Sheen as Capt. Benjamin L. Willard, and Robert Duvall as Lt. Col. Kilgore. Capt. Willard's mission—the Marlow of the film—is to locate and assassinate Kurtz.

• Directed by Nicolas Roeg, Heart of Darkness was adapted for television and aired on TNT in 1994. The film stars Tim Roth as Marlow and John Malkovich as Kurtz. It is available on cassette through Turner Home Entertainment.
• The narrative structure of Heart of Darkness was used in Francis Ford Coppola's acclaimed 1979 film Apocalypse Now, featuring Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen. The film shifts the themes of madness from the African jungle to the jungles of Vietnam. It is available from Paramount Home Video.
• There are two abridged sound recordings of Heart of Darkness. Both are produced on two cassettes each. The first, recorded by HarperCollins in 1969, is narrated by Anthony Quayle and lasts 91 minutes. The second, a 180-minute recording narrated by David Threlfall, was published by Penguin-High Bridge Audio in 1994.

Baines, Jocelyn. Joseph Conrad: A Critical Biography. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960. This biography provides valuable insights into Conrad's life within political, social, and personal contexts.

Beacham, Walton, ed. Research Guide to Biography and Criticism. Washington, DC: Beacham Publishing, 1985. A handy reference summarizing the best works in biography and literary criticism up to 1985.

Guerard, Albert J. Conrad the Novelist. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966. This book examines Conrad's significance in literary history from 1875 to 1925.

Moser, Thomas. Joseph Conrad: Achievement and Decline. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957. An essential and pioneering analysis of Conrad's fiction, considering him as a psychologist, political observer, artist, and moralist.

Najder, Zdislaw. Joseph Conrad: A Chronicle. Translated by Halina Carroll-Najder. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1983. A major scholarly biography, particularly authoritative on Conrad's Polish years, exploring how he shaped his identity through literature.

Staley, Thomas F., ed. Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. 34. Detroit: Gale Research, 1985. Offers a comprehensive introduction to Conrad's works, life, and times.

Teets, Bruce E., and Helmut E. Gerber. Joseph Conrad: An Annotated Bibliography of Writings About Him. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1971. Includes nearly two thousand entries on Conrad, spanning from 1895 to 1966.

Watt, Ian. Conrad in the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. A remarkable analysis of Conrad's early fiction up to 1900.

Watts, Cedric. A Preface to Conrad. London: Longman's Green, 1982. An excellent introductory guide for those new to Conrad's works.