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'They swarmed numerous like locusts industrious like ants thoughtless like a natural force pushing on blind and orderly and absorbed impervious to sentiment to logic to terror too perhaps.'

Considered one of Conrad's most political works The Secret Agent is set against the dismal backdrop of a drab and alienating London and tells the story of the bombing of Greenwich Observatory by a group of anarchists.

Shopkeeper spy and reluctant anarchist Mr Verloc becomes embroiled in this terrorist plot exploiting his mentally disabled brother-in-law Stevie in the process leading to tragic circumstances.