Thoroughly ironic and even sarcastic, this early, atypical Conrad novel is an ultimately tragic, comedy of errors spy story, which challenges the oral interpreter to set the right tone. Lean too heavily on the Dickensian caricatures and the tale seems a tastelessly cruel joke. Go too far the other way and you miss the point, as well as the humor. In a laconic narration, Alex Jennings renders the abridgment slyly and gives excellent impersonations of the characters. However, the recording still misses something essential in the book's personality. Y.R. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) grew up amid political unrest in Russian-occupied Poland. After twenty years at sea with the French and British merchant navies, he settled in England in 1894. Over the next three decades he revolutionized the English novel with works such as Typhoon (1902), Youth (1902), Nostromo (1904), The Secret Agent (1907), Under Western Eyes (1911), Chance (1913), and Victory (1915). --This text refers to the Paperback edition.