Heart of Darkness, originally published in 1902, remains one of the 20th century's most enduring and harrowing works of fiction. Written several years after Joseph Conrad's grueling sojourn in the Belgian Congo, the novel tells the story of Marlow, a seaman who undertakes his own journey into the African jungle to find the tormented white trader Kurtz.

Rich in irony and spellbinding prose, Heart of Darkness is a complex meditation on colonialism, evil, and the thin line between civilization and barbarity. This edition also contains selections from Conrad's Congo Diary of 1890—the first notes, in effect, for the novel which was composed at the end of that decade.

This narrative is a profound exploration of the darkness within humanity, revealing the moral ambiguities of both civilization and savagery, and positioning darkness as both a literal and metaphorical force within the human soul.