# The Secret Agent

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/joseph-conrad/the-secret-agent/9780141922430

![The Secret Agent](https://quivercdn.com/covers/penguin/joseph-conrad/the-secret-agent_978-01-4192-243-0.jpg?v=2026-04-23%2022%3A33%3A04)

- Book: [The Secret Agent](https://www.bookquiver.com/joseph-conrad/the-secret-agent) ([The Secret Agent.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/joseph-conrad/the-secret-agent.md))
- Authors: [Joseph Conrad](https://www.bookquiver.com/joseph-conrad)
- Publisher: Penguin
- Medium: ebook
- ISBN: 978-01-4192-243-0
- Published: 2000-03-30
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: E-book

## Description

In the only novel Conrad set in London, The Secret Agent; communicates a profoundly ironic view of human affairs. The story is woven around an attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894 masterminded by Verloc, a Russian spy working for the police, and ostensibly a member of an anarchist group in Soho. His masters instruct him to discredit the anarchists in a humiliating fashion, and when his evil plan goes horribly awry, Verlac must deal with the repercussions of his actions.