The Secret Agent

Credits and rights

Original writer

Joseph Conrad

Publisher of this edition

BoingyBooks Classics

Original publisher

Project Gutenberg

Adaptation credits

John Shoufler / BoingyBooks Classics — digital edition

Original source / edition

The Secret Agent (1907)

License

Public Domain

License link

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

Rights and adaptation notice

This work is in the public domain. John Shoufler published this digital edition through BoingyBooks Classics. The original work remains public domain and may be copied, adapted, and shared.

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad (1907)

A seedy London shop owner who is secretly an anarchist agent provocateur is ordered to bomb the Greenwich Observatory. Conrad's darkest novel — a proto-thriller about terrorism, surveillance, and the corruption that links governments and the criminals they fight.

Historical Significance:
Based on the real 1894 Greenwich bombing, The Secret Agent was published in 1907 and is widely considered the first modern political thriller. Conrad's London is a city of fog, paranoia, and moral ambiguity where the line between law enforcement and criminality has dissolved. Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage (1936) was based on the novel. In the post-9/11 era, the book's themes — state surveillance, manufactured terrorism, the banality of political violence — have made it more relevant than ever.

This public domain classic was originally published in 1907. Free to read and share.