Heart of Darkness, novella by Joseph Conrad that was first published in 1899 in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and then in Conrad’s Youth: and Two Other Stories (1902).

Heart of Darkness examines the horrors of Western colonialism, depicting it as a phenomenon that tarnishes not only the lands and peoples it exploits but also those in the West who advance it. Although garnering an initially lacklustre reception, Conrad’s semiautobiographical tale has gone on to become one of the most widely analyzed works of English literature.

Critics have not always treated Heart of Darkness favourably, rebuking its dehumanizing representation of colonized peoples and its dismissive treatment of women. Nonetheless, Heart of Darkness has endured, and today it stands as a Modernist masterpiece directly engaged with postcolonial realities.

Heart of Darkness tells a story within a story. The novella begins with a group of passengers aboard a boat floating on the River Thames.

One of them, Charlie Marlow, relates to his fellow seafarers an experience of his that took place on another river altogether the Congo River in Africa. Marlow’s story begins in what he calls the “sepulchral city,” somewhere in Europe. There “the Company” an unnamed organization running a colonial enterprise in the Belgian Congo appoints him captain of a river steamer.

He sets out for Africa optimistic of what he will find.