Heart of Darkness

Conrad's famed account by the seaman Marlow of his search for the elusive Kurtz, into the heart of the African continent, raises questions about the nature of civilisation and the very soul of humanity. The book's influence has stretched beyond the realm of literature so that its most famous phrase - Kurtz's dying "The horror, the horror" has entered the language and Francis Ford Coppola re-interpreted and reset the novel in his hugely successful 1979 film, Apocalypse Now.