The Secret Agent

A Simple Tale

Plot

According to the First Secretary, Mr Vladimir, Verloc has done little to earn his money in recent years and it is time for a 'dynamic outrage' to provoke the middle classes. So Verloc, accepting his duty, plants a bomb at the Greenwich Observatory. But when the blast has done its work, Verloc finds he has destroyed a great deal more than the complacency of the bourgeousie. 'The Secret Agent' is arguably one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Its brilliant depiction of a terrorist underworld, its ruthless irony and its black satire on a morally corrupt society is the culmination of many influences on Conrad, including Dickens and Dostoyevsky.