The Secret Agent is widely considered one of Conrad's greatest literary achievements. Set in gloomy 1886 London, the novel follows the life of Alfred Verdoc, a Soho shop owner and secret agent who is a member of a largely ineffectual anarchist cell. During a meeting at an unnamed foreign embassy where he is a covert employee, Verdoc is tasked with bombing the Greenwich Observatory-ostensibly to create public outrage and goad a lax British government...