<b>Introduction by Caryl Phillips<br>Commentary by H. L. Mencken, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Bertrand Russell, Lionel Trilling, Chinua Achebe, and Philip Gourevitch</b><br><br>Originally published in 1902,<i> Heart of Darkness</i> remains one of this century&rsquo;s most enduring works of fiction. Written several years after Joseph Conrad&rsquo;s grueling sojourn in the Belgian Congo, the novel is a complex meditation on colonialism, evil, and the thin line between civilization and barbarity. This edition contains selections from Conrad&rsquo;s <i>Congo Diary</i> of 1890&mdash;the first notes, in effect, for the novel, which was composed at the end of that decade. Virginia Woolf wrote of Conrad: &ldquo;His books are full of moments of vision. They light up a whole character in a flash. . . . He could not write badly, one feels, to save his life.&rdquo;