The Secret Agent

Written by Joseph Conrad

Narrated by Geoffrey Giuliano and The Spire

"The Secret Agent" is a novel written by Joseph Conrad, and published in 1907. The story is set in London in the late nineteenth century and revolves around a group of anarchists and their plot to detonate a bomb at Greenwich Observatory. The novel explores themes such as terrorism, politics, morality, and betrayal. The novel's protagonist is Adolf Verloc, a seemingly unremarkable man who owns a small shop selling pornographic materials. However, he is also a secret agent working for an unnamed foreign embassy. Verloc is tasked with infiltrating a group of anarchists and providing intelligence on their activities.

The novel introduces several characters, including Verloc's wife Winnie, her mentally disabled brother Stevie, and the anarchists' leader, known as The Professor. As Verloc becomes more deeply involved with the anarchists, he is torn between his duty to his employer and his loyalty to his new friends.

The novel takes a critical view of both anarchism and the British intelligence service, questioning the morality of using violence to achieve political ends. The character of The Professor embodies the dark side of anarchism, as he is willing to sacrifice innocent lives for the sake of his political agenda.The novel also explores the complex relationships between the characters. Verloc's marriage to Winnie is strained, and his involvement in the anarchist plot only exacerbates their problems. Stevie is a sympathetic character, and his death at the hands of Verloc is a tragic turning point in the novel. Conrad's writing style is dense and complex, with a strong emphasis on psychological realism. He delves deep into the minds of his characters, exploring their motivations and fears. The novel also features Conrad's signature use of symbolism, with the Greenwich Observatory representing the watchful eye of society, and the bomb representing the destructive power of anarchism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Icon Audio Arts
• Release date: Feb 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887677866

Joseph Conrad

Polish-born Joseph Conrad is regarded as a highly influential author, and his works are seen as a precursor to modernist literature. His often tragic insight into the human condition in novels such as Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent is unrivalled by his contemporaries.

Reviews for The Secret Agent

[theampersand · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Just in case you think there's something new under the sun, here's a book published in 1907 about fanatical outcasts in a modern who live in a lonely, dirty modern hellscape that dream of committing random acts of terrible violence. More than a hundred very bloody years later, it's interesting to see how much about the way we think about terrorism hasn't changed: the novel's radicals, who range from gormless idealists to bloodthirsty maniacs, seem like recognizable archetypes that might have been found in any of the last century's underground movements. In a titled lady's fawning over a certain incomprehensible, childlike anarchist, a bit of radical chic here. Throughout the novel, Conrad takes pains to illustrate, in turn, their poverty of spirit and their inevitable hypocrisy. It's all horribly familiar. It's also a bit strange to see Joseph Conrad tell a story that has so little do with boats: the only water here seems to fall, interminably, from the gray London sky. It's also weird to see him, in his formal, finely tuned, way, take a decidedly ironic tone. Awful as they are, this novel's terrorists are mostly walking contradictions: for all their grand ideas, they're pitifully flawed humans, as lazy self-seeking, and comfortably bourgeois as the next guy. Conrad deals with their contradictions expertly, and while there aren't any really funny moments here, there's a lot of black comedy to be had. The book's title might refer to a specific character, but absolutely in the book seems to be living a double life, and most of them are at least dimly aware of it. The book has other strengths, including a wonderfully detailed picture of a dreary, dirty Victorian London that may interest readers of historical fiction, but it's big weakness is its tempo. Sentence-for-sentence, Conrad might have been one of the finest authors English has ever produced, but nobody's ever accused him of taking shortcuts. While most of the book's action takes place on a single day, it seems like forever. One can see why the spy novelists that wrote after "The Secret Agent" chose to tell their stories in lean, hard-edged, colorfully profane prose: the author's verbosity, skillful as it is, drains most of the mystery and the fun out of this story. This criticism may be unfair. While his subject matter might make him an obvious inclusion in any "Boy's Own Stories" compilation, I doubt that Conrad was trying to write genre fiction. While this isn't a particularly readable book, more than a century after it was published, it remains a sharply observed and superbly written study in human weakness, political fanaticism, and basic hypocrisy.

[blake.rosser · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A pretty cool Conrad story, and refreshing in that it's not about some guy on a boat.

[annbury_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A pretty good thriller. but the reader has to wade through hundreds of pages of Conrad's thick prose to get the story. The cops and the anarchists are clearly boobs, and so too are most of the central characters. Doctorow's preface is very worthwhile.

[publiusdb-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I wish I had read this in the early years after 9/11. While the characters in Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Agent" are not superficially the same as the characters that would figure into the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and the subsequent events, the themes are eerily similar.

As a piece of literature, though the book is an almost surreal set of disjointed pieces. Each chapter is a different view, through a different set of eyes, and only by looking at them all in turn does the mystery unfold. Methodically, Conrad unfolds each participants thoughts in slow motion, and while he demonstrates a command of the English language that is enviable, as well as a vocabulary that would be substantial for a native speaker and even more so for a sailor whose native tongue was Polish, the slow pace demands a serious reader's attention and patience. You get a full picture in the reading, but you look at every details that unfolds.

And yet, plodding as the pace is, there are surprises. After pages of slow, deliberate character development, a sudden jolt of action with shift the plot, especially as the personal consequences of the underlying act of terror begins to turn the characters in on each other. In this regard, one sees echoes of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" or even Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" in the inescapable maelstrom that drags down all who are touched by violent men and violent actions.

Is it heavy, then? Undeniably. Worth the effort? Without question, it is an interesting and fascinating read, and Conrad's prescience, decades before the onset of the terrorism's "golden age," is itself an argument for reading "The Secret Agent."

Just don't pick it up expecting James Bond. He's not here.

[ameise1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It took a while until I could immerse myself in the story. I liked the quiet style for a strong content. First, the reader is introduced to the secret agent as a bore. Despite the fact that he does not spray out of power, his thoughts and actions are very awake. He has the talent to take the people for himself and things to turn so that he comes out fine. But he has the bill not made with his wife, who does not trust him. Likewise, the members of his association to turn away from him and one of them tried to gain profit for himself.I liked the profound story.

[dreesie-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book much more than I expected--I had actually never heard of it before finding it on Serial Reader and the 1001 books list.Winnie has spent her life devoted to her mentally disabled brother. She forgoes a true love in order to marry Mr Verloc, who is kind to Stevie and happy to have he (and then her mother) live with them.Winnie is happy enough. She works the store, cares for Stevie, and is satisfied. But then her mother chooses to move into an indigent's home through her late husband's connections--she is worried for Stevie, and feels this move while she is alive is best. But then Winnie learns how her husband truly supports them--it's not the store, he is a secret agent. She has always put up with/enjoyed the gatherings of his revolutionary friends. But now his client is asking too much.

[thebentley · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There may have been a time, long before this book was written, when its darkly comic vision of politics, revolutionaries, and law enforcement didn't apply. But I doubt there has been a time since. No one understood the dark intersection of politics, money, power, and love quite like Joseph Conrad. Since the moment that the man on the street gained enough power to have an opinion, politics (being all local) has wormed its way into every corner of our lives, and Conrad does a wonderful job of examining those motives. Unlike Sinclair or Rand, however, Conrad's style is not distant or didactic. In fact, the lens can often be so close as to slow the pacing. A very timely book, ahead of its time.

[missizicks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this book. The modernity of it surprised me. Conrad had a good grasp of human nature. His rich prose brings late 19th century London to life, and the intrigues of the life of a secret agent are as well drawn as anything written by John Le Carré almost 100 years later.

[alcracka · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Like Heart of Darkness, Secret Agent:

- Is deeply cynical
- And heavily allegorical
- And ends with a bang (although this book also begins with one).

I guessed a big part of the plot pretty quickly, so I guess that's a negative...although I'm not sure it was supposed to be hard to guess.

It's about a cheerful, indolent secret agent who's pressed by his superiors to do something big to prove his worth. Complications ensue. And there's a guy who goes around strapped with enough explosives to blow everyone around him to smithereens, and a little rubber bulb in his pocket to trigger it, so no one has the balls to arrest him. I love that guy.

[jvioland_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not bad - not memorable. Considered by some as Conrad's best. If you want his best, read Nostromo.

[soylentgreen23 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It took me a long time to read "The Secret Agent," and I don't know precisely why. It's a great book - a true classic, with hardly a sentence that one would chose to edit out - but it was heavy going at times and so dense with literary intent. As an examination of an attempted bomb-plot, and the fall-out that insued, it is masterful.

[meganandjustin · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read this for a class. Not to say that I don't love classics, because I do, but if I hadn't needed to finish this for credit I probably never would have gotten around to it. The writing is gorgeous. The atmosphere is well developed and multi-layered. However, none of the characters are sympathetic. It's hard to care about what happens when I don't care about any of the characters.

[repb_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It seemed very well written ... but very hard to follow. I read two or three books at one time and I think it would be best to read this one cover to cover alone. I really had a hard time getting through it.

[akfarrar · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Leopards might not change their spots – but works of literature can certainly change their meaning.Once this was a stylish novel of superior language use, playing with the genre of spies and flooring the ‘le Carrés’ of the future before they even put pen to paper.Well defined major characters and good descriptions – Dickensian almost but nodding to the modern.This time it was a vicious (as only humour can be vicious) satire on certainties and politics.In a world of ocean sized deceit, where atrocities and terrorism originate in ones friends and where one does not really know ‘the enemy’, small lives are wrecked leaving little flotsam to wash ashore.Winnie, whose story this is, is as tragic a figure as you will find in any ‘Bodice Ripper’ – she marries, for the sake of her family, the safe middle class man who lodged with her mother; her mother leaves in order to safeguard the prospects of an idiot son; the son, brother to Winnie, is hardly noticed by Verloc, double agent for a seedy government, until he is pressured to breaking point by an enthusiastic know-nothing (young, First Secretary, Mr Vladimir).No one is to blame – next to nothing happens, but a devastating hole is cut out in the reader’s faith in the essential goodness of the universe.The terror comes with the realisation this is our world – this is the manipulation of modern governments and those agencies set up to protect us – Nothing has changed: If anything, it is more like this than it was at the time of writing.

[hemlokgang · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

To me, this is one of the darkest novels I have read in a long time. It is a tale of a simple man used by the "government" with disastrous results. The simplest are affected the most adversely. Clearly, the author held some significantly negative perceptions of the hierarchies within government, and their manipulations of the little people!

[melmoththelost · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The blurb on the back of this book speaks of "ruthless irony" and "black satire", and it's not wrong. When I first read it last year I wasn't too impressed, being, perhaps, not in the mood to appreciate the said "ruthless irony" and "black satire". I'm pleased, therefore, that I put it aside for a future re-read instead of just releasing it at the time.Conrad's portraits and depictions of his motley group of anarchists and revolutionaries are devastating. Verloc, supposedly a ruthless terrorist but in reality is a double-agent, is motivated above all with protecting his domestic comfort but succeeds only in blowing it, along with his half-witted brother-in-law, to smithereens.The Professor, a walking bomb filled with contempt and venom for all and sundry and forever declaiming the need to kill and destroy anything and everything, is a pathetic, lonely, bitter little man who will never do anything except fulminate and sneer.Ossipon, seducer and swindler of women and dedicated to living off others like any other social parasite, an opportunist whose too late discovery of the ghost of a conscience leaves him fighting off incipient madness.Michaelis, possibly the most humble and self-effacing revolutionary ever (if that's OK by you), flabby in mind and body and in effect a pacifist.Ironically only the repressed hysteric Winnie Verloc, utterly focused since childhood on protecting and mothering the half-witted Stevie and convinced that "things do not bear looking into", proves capable of deliberately killing another human being and it is precisely that repressed hysteria which triggers the act of killing which also causes her to immediately collapse in a paralysis of terror.

[lewispike · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The elements of this book divide neatly into 3 parts to my mind.First there is a penetrating, scary, and yet amusing satire on the relationship between terrorists (and other criminals) and their society/target - painted in loving detail from both sides in fact.Second there is a sort of background of Victorian manners, particularly between the Verlocs, which I suspect is more or less accurate, but sort of reads like it's still satire from today's perspective.Finally there is something that, if the subject matter were different and there were more parties, I would characterise as bedroom farce. Unfortunately the subject matter is murder and suicide, but the misunderstandings and the like are typical of bedroom farce, although the explanations of precisely what they are is overdone to modern eyes.However, it is an interesting take on the whole bomb-making/revolutionary/terrorist state of mind, and well worth reading for this alone.

[clq_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a random read from the "1001 books you should read before you die"-list, so I knew nothing about this book other than its title. I started reading, and from the start I really didn't like it. In fact, I actively disliked it. I found the first half of the book to be a muddled and messy blend of politics, social commentary, satire and attempts at humour. As standalone elements all of these would probably have held up, but the way in which they were blended together made the story confusing, really hard to read, and disagreeable to me. Considering how little was actually happening, it was baffling how hard it was to keep up with it.Then everything changed.The mood of the book changed drastically. The relatively lighthearted, almost superficial, story turned dark. It became intense, emotional and gripping. One passage in particular, which takes up most of the second half of the book, had me completely gripped. The situation isn't particularly dramatic, but the way in which it is recounted is extremely immersive. After reading it I felt like I'd been holding my breath for a few hours. A lot of time is spent describing a very sort passage of time, yet not a word is wasted. One of the characters is in an extremely fragile emotional state, and as they get closer and closer to the edge, I found myself dreading what would happen when they fell off it. But I had to know. I had to continue reading. Way past when I should have gone to sleep.Concluding anything about this book is very difficult. Perhaps the start of the book was necessary for the rest of it to be so good. Maybe the contrast in mood and tone is what made the book have such an impact on me. I'm not sure whether I'd recommend it or not. I really, really didn't enjoy the first part of the book, and I'm finding it hard to describe how much I enjoyed the last part. Take from that what you will.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

At the turn of the 20th century, Adolf Verloc is a London shopkeeper. He has a wife (Winnie), a mother-in-law, and a brother-in-law (Stevie) with some sort of mental disability. Verloc is also a secret agent for a foreign government. He isn't called on to do much – just pass on the occasional bit of information and make contact with new arrivals who come as customers to his shop. This changes when he is called to the Embassy and ordered to execute a bombing attack on Greenwich. The bombing goes wrong, and everything falls apart for Verloc.The plot sounds like it should be an exciting book. It isn't. Most of the book is filled with the thoughts of various characters – Verloc, his fellow anarchists, various police officials, Verloc's wife and her family. Their thoughts are occasionally interrupted by the comments or actions of other characters. This book was surprisingly difficult to follow in audio, even with a talented reader that I would otherwise enjoy listening to. I don't think I would like it any better in print. Hitchcock made a film version of the book, and I think I might like it better.

[hovercraftofeels · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An enticing read filled with grotesque and somewhat comical figures. Conrad definitely understood politics and this is a well-written, bitingly satiric look at both sides of a major issue during his day. You need to understand, or at least quickly skim, the historical context if you are not going to become lost while reading. Anarchy was quite a confusing movement which was being embraced by many in the working class. Conrad definitely feels no pity for anarchists, but he doesn't spare the government or police from the bite of his pen, either. I really enjoyed the philosophical bits in which he deconstructed the very ideas of anarchy and criminality. One can see why the book would have been highly controversial at the time. An unsettling feature of the book is that contemporary readers can see how manufactured terrorist events and governmental squabbling have not changed much in the past century. Certain newspaper headlines might seem familiar to readers who keep up with current events. I do have a few issues with the novel from a disability studies perspective, namely that Stevie is an archetypal character sent into this fictional world to teach all of the able people a lesson, but hey... I did find myself laughing quite a few times throughout; how can you not find Ossipon and the rest of the gang hilarious? Certainly worth the read.

[ben_a_11 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Re-reading, and maintains the ability to stun on the 3rd or 4th time through.

[immaculatechaos · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The last three chapters were the only ones I didn't have to literally force myself to read, but they by no means made the book worth reading.

[booksfordinner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The first great spy thriller; the granddaddy of George Smiley and the like. Great! Could have done without the film with Bob Hoskins and Robin Williams, however. :)

[perfectleft_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Easier to read than most of conrad's work. Prescient? Arguably. More accurately a timely description of the convergence of the industrial revolution with mass media sublimated into "man against society." A post 9/11 reading is too facile in an approach to appreciate the nuances of the characters (izations)... definitely a must read.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While Joseph Conrad wrote this novel more than a century ago and the story is set in London in 1886, it is still timely with the predominance of terrorism in the news today. The novel deals largely with the life of one Mr. Verloc and his job as a spy interacting with secretive agencies and groups. Moving away from tales of the sea Conrad had begun to write more political novels focusing on contemporary themes of which The Secret Agent is a notable example. The novel deals broadly with the notions of anarchism, espionage, and terrorism. At the end of the Nineteenth century England, with its relative political freedom, had developed as a haven for radicals and other expatriates from the continent. Conrad leans on this to portray anarchist or revolutionary groups before many of the social uprisings of the twentieth century. The plot to destroy Greenwich is in itself anarchistic. Vladimir asserts that the bombing "must be purely destructive" and that the anarchists who will be implicated at the architects of the explosion "should make it clear that [they] are perfectly determined to make a clean sweep of the whole social creation." However, the political form of anarchism is ultimately controlled in the novel: the only supposed politically motivated act is orchestrated by a secret government agency. I believe that in his own subtle was Conrad is successful in building suspense while slyly ridiculing the questionable activities of the anarchist secret agent. While the novel is based on a true story I nonetheless enjoyed reading and wondering - would the bombing of Greenwich Observatory succeed? More recently, The Secret Agent is considered to be one of Conrad's finest novels. I enjoyed it as a novel about the city of London in a "City Literaryscapes" class at the University of Chicago, while the New York Times sees it as "the most brilliant novelistic study of terrorism". It is considered to be a "prescient" view of the 20th century, foretelling the rise of terrorism, anarchism, and the augmentation of secret societies.

[mapconsultant · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

What am I missing here? Seems dry, wordy, rambling with minimal plot development. I struggled through the first 115 pages and gave up. A rare "did not finish" for me.

[kukulaj · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read Heart of Darkness back in my school days, but I am pretty sure this is the first Conrad novel I have read. I guess I am a bit disappointed. Conrad built up such a nice configuration, but doesn't then put it to full use. What might Vladimir have done to cover up his own tracks? What if Verloc had turned aside more quickly and then had to figure out how to proceed. The thing is too much of an open and shut morality tale. What makes these things so much more sordid is their lasting character, the cover-ups of the cover-ups. What could Kafka have done with this material. OK, Kafka would go to the other extreme! This is more like a novella. Things just don't developed fully. It is like a snapshot of a world, more than a movie. Still, it is a rich snapshot, and surely in its time and place it opened up a window onto a very unusual world, not often seen in literature. Nowadays, though, it's too common. Still, Conrad is a master. The book is worth reading.

[yooperprof · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Cleverly plotted depiction of nihlism and anarchism amidst the fog of late 19th century London. I did enjoy many of the in-depth descriptions of psychological states. Both conspirators and law enforcers are carefully portrayed, and with ample attention to detail - think of Henry James writing a Dan Brown novel. But I was also dismayed by more than a few passages of turgid prose. Several key "scenes" drag unnecessarily. And maybe it's just my personal taste, but Conrad really does overdo the irony bit.

[leslie398 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Despite its name, this is not a James Bond type story. First of all, it is set in 1880s London and involves a small group of mostly ineffectual anarchists. Secondly, the primary characteristic of the main "secret agent" is laziness! Conrad gives us wonderful portraits of these disaffected men, each of whom is disgruntled for different reasons, as well as the rest of the Verloc family.

As I was reading this, I kept having the sensation of deja vu. I knew that I had never read this before, but certain aspects were extremely familiar to me and in one important part I knew in advance what was coming. Finally I realized that Alfred Hitchcock had based one of his early movies - Sabotage - on this book! I am a big fan of Hitchcock (and have seen Sabotage more than once), but although his movie is quite exciting (even more thrills than the book), it doesn't capture Conrad's characters and has a completely different (and more conventional) ending. The book features complex characters and motivations which are perhaps slower and less exciting but will stay with me longer.

[r3dh00d-46076 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think Conrad was like Carver (you never thought you'd see that comparison, did you?): he should have stuck with the short form, which in Conrad's case was the novella. I don't think you could call anything Conrad wrote "short". This was a great story stretched out over much too many pages.