Secret Agent
Page 29
Conrad was encouraged to continue to write by Unwin’s reader Edward Garnett, although he went on applying for posts as a ship’s captain. He finished The Outcast of the Islands in 1895 and in 1896 married Jessie George. They had two sons, Borys and John, born in 1898 and 1906. Constantly in need of more money, Conrad produced short stories and serialized his novels. Although plagued by physical illness and psychological problems, he established one of the most formidable bodies of work in the English language. His longer works include The Nigger of the “Narcissus” (1897), Lord Jim (1900), Nostromo (1904), The Secret Agent (1907), Under Western Eyes (1911), and Victory (1915). From early in his career Conrad had the admiration of fellow writers—Stephen Crane, John Galsworthy, Henry James, and Ford Madox Ford, with whom Conrad collaborated on The Inheritors (1901) and Romance (1903). It was only after the success of Chance (1913), however, that his writing afforded him widespread recognition and relative financial security. He spent his declining years in Kent, often in ill health, and died on August 3, 1924, at his home near Canterbury.
THE SECRET
AGENT
1998 Modern Library Paperback Edition
Biographical note copyright © 1993 by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Modern Library and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924
The secret agent / Joseph Conrad. — Modern Library ed.
p. cm.
I. Title.
[PR6005.O4S4 1998]
823'.912—dc21 98-19549
Modern Library website address:
www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary
eISBN: 978-0-679-64127-8
v3.0