Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness is a novella, written by Joseph Conrad, that is presented in the form of a frame narrative (a story within a story). It was first published as a three-part serial, February, March, and April 1899, in Blackwood's Magazine (February 1899 was the magazine's 1000th issue: special edition). Then later, in 1902, Heart of Darkness was included in the book "Youth: a Narrative, and Two Other Stories" (published November 13, 1902, by William Blackwood). The volume consisted of Youth: a Narrative, Heart of Darkness, and The End of the Tether in that order, to loosely illustrate the three stages of life. For future editions of the book, in 1917 Conrad wrote an "Author's Note" where he discusses each of the three stories, and makes light commentary on the character Marlow - the narrator of the tales within the first two stories. He also mentions how Youth marks the first appearance of Marlow.

In Conrad's words, regarding Heart of Darkness: In a letter to Henry-Durand Darvay, dated April 10, 1902, Joseph Conrad wrote (French: translated below):

"A wild story of a journalist who becomes manager of a station in the interior and makes himself worshipped by a tribe of savages. Thus described, the subject seems comic, but it isn't."

Then the following month, on May 31, 1902, in a letter to William Blackwood, Conrad remarks:

"I call your own kind self to witness the last pages of Heart of Darkness where the interview of the man and the girl locks in—as it were—the whole 30000 words of narrative description into one suggestive view of a whole phase of life and makes of that story something quite on another plane than an anecdote of a man who went mad in the Centre of Africa."

Through the years the story gained in popularity. It has since been published in abundance, in several different forms (collected works, paperbacks, annotated studies, etc.), and has been translated into many different languages. Because 'Heart of Darkness' is such a relatively short story, it has perhaps generated proportionately more pure text of discussion - in the manner of interpretations of meaning, analysis, commentary, reviews, essays, and even provisions of historical context - than any other work in English literature. In 1998, Heart of Darkness was ranked #67 on the Modern Library Top 100 English Language Novels of the 20th Century. and part of the Western canon.