Skip to main content
Biography: Joseph Conrad
Enlightening overview of a literary pioneer
SPOOKY: Russian spy Verloc (Toby Jones, right) is instructed by Vladimir (David Dawson) to blow up the Greenwich Observatory in 2016 BBC production of The Secret Agent

IN A Penguin readers’ list of the 100 must-read classic novels, Joseph Conrad appears only once, at number 92.

Unsurprisingly, the named work is his short novella Heart of Darkness, often found on college syllabuses and the subject of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 blockbuster film, Apocalypse Now, which relocated the action from the menacing hinterland of the turn-of-the-century Congo to the US genocide in Vietnam.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
duchamp
Book Review / 13 September 2026
13 September 2026

ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes an enlightening and witty biography of one of the 20th century’s most restless and influential artists

Serge
Book Review / 20 August 2026
20 August 2026

HENRY BELL salutes a fine portrait of a revolutionary who remains a deeply significant and provocative figure

benjamin
Books / 6 March 2026
6 March 2026

GORDON PARSONS is intrigued by a biography of the Marxist intellectual and author, made from the point of view of his son

Hamnet
Opinion / 20 January 2026
20 January 2026

JULIA THOMAS unpicks the mental processes that explain why book-to-film adaptations so often disappoint