Heart of Darkness is a novella (published in 1902) by Joseph Conrad. Before publication, it appeared in a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine (1899). This highly symbolic story is actually a story within a story, or frame tale, following a man named Charlie Marlow as he recounts his adventure to a group of men on a ship at dusk and continuing into the evening. It details an incident earlier in Marlow's life, a journey on what readers can assume is the Congo River (although the name of the