The dark places of the human soul - this is the region that Joseph Conrad so brilliantly explores. In the steaming jungles of the Congo or the vast reaches of the sea, it is man's capacity for good and for evil that is his enduring theme.

Heart of Darkness tells of the European, Kurtz, who reverts to savagery in an isolated native trading post.

The Secret Sharer describes the conflict of a young captain who is torn between his duty to his ship and his loyalty to a young officer with whom he identifies after the murder of a mutinous crew member.

Compelling, vivid, exotic, suspenseful, these are among the greatest short novels in the English language. “To make you hear, to make you feel, above all to make you see” - this was, first and last, the aim of Conrad.