Serialized in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine during the period 1398-1902, 'Youth', leant of Darkness' and 'The h.I of the Tether' make up the contents of Conrad's most celebrated collection of
short narratives, first published in a single volume in 1902. 'Heart of Darkness' forms its sombre centrepiece: set in the Congo of the 1890s, this haunting and widely influential Modernist
masterpiece explores the limits of human experience as well as the nightmarish realities and consequences of imperialism.
The 'Introduction' situates the stories within the context of Conrad's relationship with the Blackwood publishing firm, traces their sources, lays out the evolution of the volume and surveys
its subsequent reception. The 'Explanatory Notes' elucidate literary, historical and geographical references, and supply other contextual materials, A glossary of nautical terms further
enriches the explanatory matter, as do maps and illustrations. 'Ube essay on the texts in combination with the comprehensive apparatus lays out the history of each story's composition, revision
and publication, detailing interventions in the text by Conrad's typists, compositors and editors.
Based upon a painstaking comparison of preprint documents, serials and subsequent hook versions printed during Conrad's lifetime, the Cambridge Edition presents this trio of stories and their
preface in forms more authoritative than any so far published. Errors introduced by typists and early publishers have been repaired and Conrad's own preferred forms recovered; the texts are
freed from successive layers of non-authorial intervention; and the impress of magazine house-styles has been bypassed or significantly ameliorated in order to recover the writer's sparer, more
expressive punctuation.
Owen Knowles, Research Fellow at the University of Hull.
