Introduction: the biographical and historical background -- Text of Heart of Darkness -- Introduction to the Danse Macabre: Conrad's Heart of darkenss / Frederick R. Karl -- Darkening the reader: reader-response criticism and Heart of Darkness / Adena Rosmarin -- "Too beautiful altogether:" patriarchal ideology in Heart of darkenss / Johanna M. Smith -- Heart of darkenss revisited / J. Hillis Miller -- Preserving and keeping order by killing time in Heart of darkness / Brook Thomas