The Secret Agent A Simple Tale Annotated And Illustrated Edition

Joseph Conrad published The Secret Agent in 1907 and the work is often taken to be the major work in a trilogy of political works that Conrad published around this time (the other two are Nostromo and Under Western Eyes). The book is also taken to be Conrad's greatest metropolitan novel and makes use both of Continental and English writing styles. The Secret Agent is one of the first spy novels and is written in such a way as to require great attention on the part of the reader to make sense of the plot developments that occur (Simmons and Stape, viii).