Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness was first published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in 1899 and then appeared in Conrad's Youth: and Two Other Stories in 1902. Heart of Darkness explores the atrocities of Western colonialism and shows how it affects not just the lands and populations it abuses but also those in the West who support it. Despite a mediocre initial reception, Conrad's semiautobiographical story has grown to become one of the most extensively studied pieces of English literature. Heart of Darkness has not always received positive reviews from critics who object to its contemptuous attitude of women and its dehumanising portrayal of colonised people. Heart of Darkness has survived, nevertheless, and it now stands as a masterpiece of Modernism that is firmly rooted in postcolonial reality.