Mark D. Larabee, PhD, is formerly associate professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy. He is the author of Front Lines of Modernism: Remapping the Great War in British Fiction and numerous articles on Joseph Conrad and other authors, including contributions to the books Conrad and Nature, A Historical Guide to Joseph Conrad, Approaches to Teaching Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and "The Secret Sharer", and Joseph Conrad: The Short Fiction. His writing and research have won national awards, including the Bruce Harkness Young Conrad Scholar Award from the Joseph Conrad Society of America and an award from the College English Association. Larabee received the Naval Academy's first-ever Military Professor Teaching Excellence Award. He has served as a regional delegate to the Modern Language Association, is active in the Joseph Conrad Society of America, and is the executive editor of Joseph Conrad Today, the official publication of the Joseph Conrad Society of America.

Reviews

"This book will be most appreciated in academic libraries, whose readers, whether studying history or literature, will appreciate the interweaving of the two disciplines. Given its rather reasonable price and its readability, other libraries should also consider it if their patrons are interested in British literature or African history."—ARBA

Endorsements

"In this thoughtfully curated edition, Mark Larabee shows us how and why Heart of Darkness is a novel for all seasons. Born out of the tumult of the late Victorian global empire, it hurtles through a world of geopolitical complexities and moral dilemmas from which we have not yet exited. This splendid annotation makes readers into witnesses of a historical drama that anticipates the very age we are living in."—Antoinette Burton, Professor of History and Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies, Department of History, University of Illinois, and Author of An ABC of Queen Victoria's Empire

"Mark Larabee's The Historian's Heart of Darkness provides a significant contribution to the enormous body of work devoted to Conrad's great novella. The introduction is well-informed and rich with historical detail; the information concerning the political and economic context of the story is especially fine. Larabee's notes to the text are extensive and authoritative. This book reflects substantial research and scholarship; I hope it will introduce Heart of Darkness to generations of historians and their students."—Richard Ruppel, Professor, English and Peace Studies, Chapman University, past president of the Joseph Conrad Society of America

"Mark Larabee's new edition of Heart of Darkness is an important resource for scholars and the definitive text for classroom use. Clear and careful, rich and concise, this historical edition fully situates Conrad's text in the world in which he wrote and to which he was responding. Only by grounding their reading in the specific historical details that this edition provides can readers begin to understand the ironies and nuances of Conrad's method and masterpiece." —Debra Romanick Baldwin, Associate Professor, University of Dallas; Past President, Joseph Conrad Society of America

"Mark Larabee's edition of Heart of Darkness is an excellent presentation of the tale. Its extensive emphasis on the novel's historical context sets it apart from the crowd of other classroom editions, as does Larabee's close attention to detail in his exhaustive explanatory notes. This historical background, along with the other supplementary materials provided, return Heart of Darkness once again to the time and geography that originally produced it, making this edition invaluable for students, instructors, and scholars alike."—John G. Peters, University Distinguished Research Professor at the University of North Texas, General Editor of Conradiana, and Author of Joseph Conrad's Critical Reception