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The anarchist's wife: Joseph Conrad's debt to sensation fiction in The Secret Agent.

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From: Conradiana
Date: 20040322
Author:Harrington, Ellen Burton

The "story of Winnie Verloc," as Joseph Conrad termed The Secret Agent, (1) seems something of an unlikely description for a novel whose title promises international intrigue and duplicity. Interestingly, the novel explores both possibilities, showing the complicated resonance of a political act in the lives of individuals and highlighting the intrigue and duplicity common to the domestic sphere in addition to the political one. Framed by Winnie Verloc's persistent invocation "Things don't bear much looking into," The Secret Agent can be read as a novel that fuses elements of the ...

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