Heart of Darkness
(Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Joseph Conrad's enduring portrait of the ugliness of colonialism in a deluxe edition with a gripping cover by Hellboy artist Mike Mignola. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read For more than seventy years, Penguin…
Heart of Darkness is the thrilling tale of Marlow, a seaman and wanderer recounting his physical and psychological journey in search of the infamous ivory trader Kurtz. Traveling upriver into the heart of the African continent, he gradually becomes obsessed by this enigmatic, wraith-like figure. Marlow's discovery of how Kurtz has gained his position of power over the local people involves him in a radical questioning, not only of his own nature and values, but of those that underpin Western civilization itself.
Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Ukraine, in 1857. After both of his parents died of tuberculosis, Conrad went to live with his uncle in Switzerland. After attending school in Kraków, he joined the French and then the British merchant marines, sailing to exotic destinations like the West Indies and the Congo, which would later become the backdrops for some of his fiction. In 1894 he settled down in England and began his literary career. In 1902 Conrad published his most famous work, Heart of Darkness, and continued to write until his death in 1924.
Mike Mignola is best known as the award-winning creator/writer/artist of Hellboy, although he began working as a professional cartoonist in the early 1980s, drawing “a little bit of everything for just about everybody.” He was also a production designer on the Disney film Atlantis: The Lost Empire and visual consultant to Guillermo del Toro on both Blade 2 and the film version of Hellboy. Mignola lives in southern California with his wife, daughter, and cat.