Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad about a narrated voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State in the so-called "heart of Africa". Charles Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames. This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the ivory trader Kurtz, which enables Conrad to create a parallel between what Conrad calls "the greatest town on earth", London, and Africa as places of darkness.
Heart of Darkness
The novel "Hearts of Darkness", by Paul Lawrence, moves the events of the novel to England in 1666. Marlow's journey into the jungle becomes a journey by the narrator, Harry Lytle and his friend Davy Dowling out of London and towards Shyam, a plague-stricken town that has descended into cruelty and barbarism, loosely modelled on real-life Eyam. While Marlow must return to civilisation with Kurtz, Lytle and Dowling are searching for the spy James Josselin. Like Kurtz, Josselin's reputation is immense and the protagonists are well-acquainted with his accomplishments by the time they meet him.