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The Secret Agent

Penguin Classics

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Luke Norris, known for his role in BBC drama Poldark. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by Michael Newton.

In the only novel Conrad set in London, The Secret Agent communicates a profoundly ironic view of human affairs. The story is woven around an attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894 masterminded by Verloc, a Russian spy working for the police, and ostensibly a member of an anarchist group in Soho. His masters instruct him to discredit the anarchists in a humiliating fashion, and when his evil plan goes horribly awry, Verlac must deal with the repercussions of his actions.

 Classics Espionage Spies & Politics Thriller & Suspense Witty
All stars
Most relevant
This edition includes the introduction and some background to Conrad’s writing this macabre gothic mystery thriller. One of my favourite books of the year and a superb classic that I’m still thinking about weeks after finishing.

A good presentation too and I was sad to see the narrator hasn’t presented more audiobooks. Some good voices acted out to add to the overall enjoyment.

Brilliant!

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Found the story a disappointment - overly descriptive, resulting in a lack of depth in the story itself. Story could have been so much more, and hence been much more interesting & gripping. Instead it left me disappointed.

Description at the expense of story

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Luke Norris delivers a truly great reading: he has an outstanding actor's gift of allowing the greatness of a work to speak for itself, yet interpreting the characters as believable, fully living human beings. Of Conrad's great work, weaving so brilliantly loveable people who cry out at cruelty with the arrogant, bleak inhumanity of dehumanising ideology, its greatness is fully opened to the heart of the reader.

Superb performance of a great work

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