'The horror! The horror!' Seaman Charlie Marlowe takes a decaying steamboat on a perilous voyage to the heart of Africa. His mission is to relieve an ivory agent named Kurtz, taken sick at his remote trading station on the Congo River. The cruelty that Marlowe witnesses on his journey, and his eventual meeting with the legendary Kurtz, force him to question not only his own human nature and values, but the very basis of European civilization. Informed by Conrad's personal experience of Africa, and reflecting the savagery of life in the Belgian Congo, Heart of Darkness is an indictment of the evils of colonialism. Tales of Unrest is a collection of five compelling short stories in which Conrad explores the nature of the soul and man's psychological malaise.