The Secret Agent Summary
Joseph Conrad

Everything you need to understand or teach The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad.

The Secret Agent Summary & Study Guide
1 Encyclopedia Article
1 Literature Criticism
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30 The Secret Agent Lessons
20 Activities
180 Multiple Choice Questions
60 Short Essay Questions
20 Essay Questions
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The Secret Agent Summary

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad, is a classic novel based on actual events, the attempt to blow up the Greenwich Observatory in 1894. The fictionalized tale revolves around a beautiful, young wife, her simple-minded brother, and her devoted but tortured husband. The novel is a mixture of love story, espionage, and mystery that continues to entertain many years after its original publication date.

The novel opens as Mr. Verloc, a storeowner...

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Encyclopedia Articles (1)

The Secret Agent

4,733 words, approx. 16 pages

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) was born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in Berdichev, Poland, then part of the Russian empire. Conrads father (a transla... Read more

Joseph Conrad Biographies (7)

Joseph Conrad

1,834 words, approx. 7 pages

The Polish-born English novelist Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) was concerned with men under stress, deprived of the ordinary supports of civilized life and forced to confront the mystery of human individu... Read more

Joseph Conrad

6,280 words, approx. 21 pages

Writing in his The Great Tradition, the respected critic F. R. Leavis noted that Joseph Conrad "is among the greatest novelists in the language--in any language." Indeed, language is at the very heart... Read more

Joseph Conrad

2,098 words, approx. 7 pages

Joseph Conrad 's reputation as a literary figure of major proportions rests entirely on his fiction. In relation to this large canon his dramatic works are incidental, derivative, and slight in volume... Read more

Joseph Conrad

19,308 words, approx. 65 pages

Joseph Conrad is now widely accepted as one of the modernist masters of serious narrative fiction. Historically placed, he is a major figure in the transition from Victorian fiction to the more perpl... Read more

Joseph Conrad

3,348 words, approx. 12 pages

Joseph Conrad's reputation as a major modern writer rests almost exclusively on his novels and short fiction. But even if his five volumes of occasional writings only infrequently achieve the high dis... Read more

Joseph Conrad

12,369 words, approx. 42 pages

The short fiction of Joseph Conrad is central to his literary achievement. Conrad wrote forty-three works of fiction, of which thirty-one are short, ranging from stories of a few pages to novellas of ... Read more

Joseph Conrad

20,098 words, approx. 67 pages

Biography EssayJoseph Conrad is now widely accepted as one of the modernist masters of serious narrative fiction. Historically placed, he is a major figure in the transition from Victorian fiction to ... Read more