Heart of Darkness

More than a century after its publication (1899), Heart of Darkness remains an indisputably classic text and arguably Conrad’s finest work.

This extensively revised Norton Critical Edition includes new materials that convey nineteenth-century attitudes toward imperialism as well as the concerns of Conrad’s contemporaries about King Leopold’s exploitation of his African domain. New to the Fourth Edition are excerpts from Adam Hochschild’s recent book, King Leopold’s Ghost, and from Sir Roger Casement’s influential “Congo Report” on Leopold’s atrocities. “Backgrounds and Contexts” also provides readers with a collection of photographs and a map that bring the Congo Free State to life.

A new section, “Nineteenth-Century Attitudes toward Race,” includes writings by, among others, Hegel, Darwin, and Sir Francis Galton. New essays by Patrick Brantlinger, Marianna Torgovnik, Edward W. Said, Hunt Hawkins, Anthony Fothergill, and Paul Armstrong debate Chinua Achebe’s controversial indictment of the novel’s depiction of Africans and offer differing views about whether Conrad’s beliefs about race were progressive or retrograde.

A rich selection of writings by Conrad on his life in the Congo is accompanied by extensive excerpts from his essays about art and literature. “Criticism” presents a wealth of new materials on Heart of Darkness, including contemporary responses by Henry James, E.M. Forster, Ford Madox Ford, and Virginia Woolf. Recent critical assessments by Peter Brooks, Jeremy Hawthorn, Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan, Andrew Michael Roberts, J. Hillis Miller, and Lissa Schneider cover a ranger of topics, from narrative theory to philosophy and sexuality. Also new to the Fourth Edition is a selection of writings on the connections between the novel and the film Apocalypse Now.

This Norton Critical Edition is again based on Robert Kimbrough’s meticulously re-edited text of the novel. An expanded Textual Appendix allows the reader to follow Conrad’s revisions at different stages of the creative process. A Chronology has been added, and the Selected Bibliography has been revised and updated.