Heart of Darkness and The secret sharer

In these two short but profoundly influential novels, Joseph Conrad drew on actual events and people he met or heard about during his many far-flung travels. In Heart of Darkness he tells the story of the civilized, enlightened Marlow, who embarks on a harrowing «night journey» into the heart of Africa, only to discover the darkness and corruption of his own soul.
The Secret Sharer is the saga of a young, inexperienced skipper forced to decide the fate of a fugitive sailor who killed a man in self-defense. As he faces his first moral test, the skipper discovers a terrifying truth-and comes face-to-face with the shattering secret itself. In portraying men whose incredible journeys on land and at sea are also symbolic voyages into their own mysterious depths, these two masterworks give credence to Conrad’s -acclaim as one of our first-and still most important- psychological novelists.