Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, was originally a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899. It is a story within a story, following a character named Charlie Marlow, who recounts his adventure to a group of men. aboard an anchor Embarcacion. The story told is from his early life as a ferry captain. Although his job was to transport ivory downstream, Charlie develops an interest in investing in an ivory purchasing agent, Kurtz, who is a government employee. Preceded by his reputation as a brilliant emissary of progress, Kurtz has now established himself as a god among the natives in "one of the darkest places on earth." Marlow suspects something more of Kurtz: he has gone mad. A reflection on corrupt European colonialism and a journey into the nightmarish psyche of one of the corrupt, Heart of Darkness, is considered one of the most influential works ever written.