Robert Kimbrough Book order (chronological)

Heart of Darkness has been considered for most of this century as a literary classic, and also as a powerful indictment of the evils of imperialism. It reflects the savage repressions carried out in the Congo by the Belgians in one of the largest acts of genocide committed up to that time. Conrad's narrator encounters at the end of the story a man named Kurtz, dying, insane, and guilty of unspeakable atrocities.

"'Youth', Heart of Darkness and 'The End of the Tether' make up Conrad's most celebrated collection of short narratives. Heart of Darkness forms its sombre centrepiece: set in the Congo of the 1890s, this haunting and widely influential Modernist masterpiece explores the limits of human experience as well as the nightmarish realities and consequences of imperialism."