The Modern World: Ten Great Writers — Season 1, Episode 2: Joseph Conrad: The Secret Agent

Episode synopsis

When an anarchist attempted to blow up the Greenwich Observatory, an idea exploded in the mind of Joseph Conrad. This program re-creates the world of The Secret Agent, the first great novel of political intrigue, in all its suspense and sinister irony. In addition, author and critic V. S. Pritchett and Keith Carabine, of Kent University (England), explore Conrad’s concern that the very fabric of society was being jeopardized by the growing violence and moral corruption—a concern as timely today as it was then.

About The Modern World: Ten Great Writers

This documentary series uses drama and commentary to shed light on the lives and works of Joseph Conrad, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, T. S. Eliot, Henrik Ibsen, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Luigi Pirandello, Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf.

More episodes from Season 1

• E1James Joyce: Ulysses
• E3Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 'Crime and Punishment'
• E4Marcel Proust: A la recherche du temps perdu
• E5Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain
• E6Henrik Ibsen: The Master Playwright
• E7Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway
• E8Luigi Pirandello: In Search of an Author
• E9T.S. Eliot: The Waste Land
• E10Franz Kafka: The Trial
• E11Ten Great Writers: The Seminar