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The Secret Agent
Joseph Conrad · 1907 · Drama & Literary, Crime & Thriller
In fogbound Edwardian London, a secret agent concealed behind a shabby Soho shop is ordered to manufacture a political outrage. As embassy pressure, police rivalry, anarchist theory, and a family's private loyalties converge, Joseph Conrad turns espionage into an unsettling study of secrecy, coercion, and the human cost of treating lives as instruments.
Inside this edition
Every LitLab edition is illustrated from the text itself — the world of the book mapped, its people drawn, its scenes staged. 27 plates are open to everyone in this book; here are 8 of them.
The London of The Secret Agent: Soho, Westminster, Greenwich, and the stations between.
The Verloc HouseThe house - every room depends upon what remains unspoken.
A City of Secret Machinery: household, embassy, police, anarchists, and press.
The Characters of The Secret Agent: twelve lives caught in London's secret machinery.
Adolf Verloc: overcoat, sealed reports, shop key, and the expressions of a pressured informer.
Winnie Verloc: house keys, ledger, wedding ring, and a silence centered on Stevie.
Inside Brett Street: Winnie at the counter, Stevie at his circles, and Verloc beneath the shop bell.
At the Embassy: Mr Vladimir measures an uneasy Adolf Verloc through his round eyeglass.
This edition
- Title
- The Secret Agent
- Author
- Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
- First published
- 1907
- Illustrated plates
- 64 original artworks · 27 open to everyone
- Chapters
- 13 · about 90,467 words
- Reading time
- 6 h 2 min
- Language
- EN
- Formats
- Read online · EPUB and PDF download with a subscription
- Publisher
- LitLab — The Illustrated Classics
- On LitLab since
- August 2026
- Rights
- Text in the public domain. Illustrations and edition © LitLab.
- Source text
- Project Gutenberg #974
Neighbours in the library
Chosen by what they share with The Secret Agent — the same genre.