Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness is about Charles Marlow's life as an ivory transporter down the Congo River in Central Africa. The river is "a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land." In the course of his travels in central Africa, Marlow becomes obsessed with Mr. Kurtz, a mysterious trader of ivory who has disappeared into the jungle and rumored to be living as a demigod among the natives.Originally published as a three-part serial story, in Blackwood's Magazine, Heart of Darkness was recently ranked as the 67th of the 100 best novels in English of the twentieth century.