Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad's work Heart of Darkness was first published as a three-part serial in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899. A guy named Charlie Marlow tells a group of men on board a moored ship about his trip in this story-within-a-story. His early years as a ferry boat captain are the subject of the tale. Charlie gets an interest in investing in ivory procurement agent Kurtz, who works for the government, despite the fact that his job was to transfer ivory downriver. In "e;one of the darkest places on earth,"e; Kurtz has become revered by the locals due to his reputation as a clever envoy of development. Marlow believes Kurtz has another motive, namely that he is insane. Heart of Darkness, one of the most important books ever written, is a reflection on corruptive European colonialism and a journey into the nightmare psyche of one of the corrupted.