Books in Star Classics series

HEART OF DARKNESS In 1889, Joseph Conrad journeyed to Colonial Africa to assume command of a Congo River steamboat. There he discovered the dark nature of European exploitation of the peoples and natural resources of a continent, as well as the darkness and dangers of nature itself. HEART OF DARKNESS is a dramatization of Conrad’s experiences and discoveries. Narrated in the vocabulary of Conrad’s storyteller Marlow, the author expresses the horrors of a system he has grown to despise. Just as forcefully, he reveals the darkness that participation in such a system can visit upon the human soul. THE SECRET SHARER Joseph Conrad, once a captain in the same seas where this story is set, chooses his fictional captain to narrate his story. At anchor near a group of small islands, the new captain of the Sephora is surprised by a swimmer close by. He takes him aboard and discovers that he, Leggat by name, is fleeing punishment on another ship for a "murder." The captain hears his story and takes him aboard. But is his story true. Should he be concealed from the crew, who surely know the unproven captain's legal responsibilities? Can the young captain's future, not to mention the safety of the crew, be put at risk on the strength of a desperate man's tale?

No novel is more often connected to the German STURM UND DRANG (Storm and Stress) literary movement than Goethe’s THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER. Written during the author’s early twenties, it is a passionate, tragic story of hopeless love—and is somewhat autobiographical. Its publication immediately assured Goethe’s literary prominence. The novel is also credited as a major influence on the development of the later Romantic movement in the literary arts. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, of course, became one of the most celebrated names in Western literature. Author of four novels, he was also a prolific poet and a dramatist. But the creator of FAUST, PROMETHEUS, and many other great works did not limit his efforts to literature. His studies in botany, human anatomy, and physics established Goethe as one of the leading scientists of his time.