The Secret Agent

The Secret Agent is an astonishing book," said Ford Madox Ford. "It is one of the best — and certainly the most significant — detective stories ever written."

Set in late-nineteenth-century London, Joseph Conrad's intense political thriller anticipates the espionage novels of such writers as Graham Greene and John Le Carré. It concerns a double agent who is charged with provoking the radical group he has infiltrated into an act of sabotage that will bring about its own destruction. In a mar...