Everything You Love On eBay. Check Out Great Products On eBay. But Did You Check eBay? Find Toy Secret Agent On eBay.
Search results
People also ask
What country is the secret agent set in?
Who wrote the secret agent a simple tale?
Who is Adolf Verloc in the secret agent?
Is the secret agent a spy thriller?
When was the secret agent written?
Where can I find a book about the secret agent?
The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale is an anarchist spy fiction novel by Joseph Conrad, first published in 1907. [1] The story is set in London in 1886 and deals with Mr. Adolf Verloc and his work as a spy for an unnamed country (presumably Russia).
- Joseph Conrad
- 1907
The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale is an anarchist spy fiction novel by Joseph Conrad, first published in 1907. The story is set in London in 1886 and deals with Mr. Adolf Verloc and his work as a spy for an unnamed country (presumably Russia).
May 10, 2019 · A deracinated Polish aristocrat who tried to reinvent himself as a tweedy English country gentleman—the pseudonymous and multilingual Conrad knew all about being torn in pieces. Some critics look to Conrad’s marriage—which they’re convinced was unhappy—for The Secret Agent ’s biographical models.
Adolf Verloc is a languid eastern European secret agent posing as a London shop owner with anarchist leanings who is ordered to dynamite Greenwich Observatory. The plot fails when Verloc’s mentally disabled brother-in-law is accidently killed by the explosives.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Events in History at The Time of The Novel
- The Novel in Focus
- For More Information
An era of tense diplomacy
The four decades between the end of the Franco-Prussian War (1871) and the outbreak of World War I (1914) saw the last stage in the consolidation of Europe’s global empires. Of the six European states known as the Great Powers—Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Germany, and Austria-Hungary—each except for the last one ruled over a global empire that was often in direct competition with the others. While peace existed in Europe between 1871 and 1914, it was increasingly strained by a complex and...
Terrorists and revolutionaries
The international scene was further complicated by the rise of revolutionary movements that often transcended the borders between countries. In Britain the greatest threat came from the Fenians, or Irish revolutionaries, part of the home-rule movement, which sought to end British rule in Ireland. Throughout the 1880s the Fenians attacked a number of well-known British institutions in London, including Parliament and the Tower of London, in a series of explosions commonly referred to in the Br...
ANARCHISM
The political philosophy of anarchism calls for the end of all forms of hierarchical authority, including governments, and the establishment of a society based on orderly relations between equals. The mix of men who founded the anarchist movement reflect its historically international character. The movement arose from ideas posed by the English philosopher William Godwin (1756–1836), though the first to call himself an anarchist was the French thinker Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–65), whose...
Plot summary
The novel opens as Adolf Verloc leaves for the morning from the little London shop where he sells anarchist journals and pornographic literature. The shop occupies the front room of a small, grimy brick house in London’s shabby Soho district, where Verloc lives with his family. Along with his wife, Winnie, the family includes her adoring brother Stevie, in a condition of mental retardation; and their unnamed mother, a stout working-class woman whose swollen ankles prevent her from getting aro...
CONRAD’S IRONIC TECHNIQUE
Critics have praised The Secret Agentas a masterpiece of sustained irony, the literary method by which the author intends his words to be understood in a way that goes against their surface meaning. For example, anarchism was well known for opposing the accumulation of private properly (hence the famous dictum of the anarchist Pierre Joseph Poudhon,”property is theft”). Yet early in the novel Verloc is presented as a protector of society’s wealthy, propertied class. This is how he fondly imag...
Ideological contrasts between England and Russia
In his conversation with Verloc, the Russian spymaster Vladimir shows contempt for British society, with its bourgeois or middle-class emphasis on freedom and the rule of law: Vladimir, who represents Russia’s authoritarian political system, is not the only one to show disdain for Britain. The Professor too declares his enmity toward the British system, although he views it from the opposite end of the political spectrum, from the perspective of anarchism. But while the Professor also despise...
Bailey, Victor. “This Rash Act”: Suicide Across the Life Cycle in the Victorian City. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford UniversityPress, 1998. Batchelor, John. The Life of Joseph Conrad: A Critical Biography.Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. Conrad, Joseph. The Secret Agent.Garden City: Anchor, 1953. Fleishman, Avrom. Conrad’s Politics: Community and Anarchy in th...
Sep 21, 2024 · The story is set in London in 1886 and deals with Mr. Adolf Verloc and his work as a spy for an unnamed country (presumably Russia). The Secret Agent is one of Conrad's later political novels in which he moved away from his former tales of seafaring.
The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale is a novel by Joseph Conrad, published in 1907. The story is set in London in 1886 and deals with Mr Adolf Verloc and his work as a spy for an unnamed country (presumably Russia). The Secret Agent is one of Conrad's later political novels in which he moved away from his former tales of seafaring.
