The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale is an anarchist spy fiction novel by Polish-British author Joseph Conrad, first published in 1907.

Stevie has a mental disability, possibly autism,[6] which causes him to be excitable; his sister, Verloc's wife, attends to him, treating him more as a son than as a brother.

Vladimir informs Verloc that from reviewing his service history he is far from an exemplary model of a secret agent and, to redeem himself, must carry out an operation – the destruction of Greenwich Observatory by a bomb.

Vladimir explains that Britain's lax attitude to anarchism endangers his own country, and he reasons that an attack on 'science', the current vogue amongst the public, will provide the necessary outrage for suppression.

The Professor describes the nature of the bomb he carries in his coat at all times: it allows him to press a button which will kill him and those nearest to him in twenty seconds.

After The Professor leaves the meeting, he stumbles into Chief Inspector Heat, a policeman investigating a recent explosion at Greenwich, where one man was killed.

The driver's tales of hardship, whipping of his horse, and menacing hook scare Stevie to the point where Mrs Verloc must calm him.

The Chief Inspector tells Mrs Verloc that he had recovered an overcoat at the scene of the bombing which had the shop's address written on a label.

Ossipon assists her while confessing romantic feelings but secretly with a view to possess Mr Verloc's bank account savings.

He later discovers in a newspaper that a woman matching Mrs Verloc's description disappeared from the ferry, leaving behind her wedding ring before drowning herself in the English Channel.

Conrad's character Stevie is based on the French anarchist Martial Bourdin who died gruesomely when the explosives he carried detonated prematurely.

But that outrage could not be laid hold of mentally in any sort of way, so that one remained faced by the fact of a man blown to bits for nothing even most remotely resembling an idea, anarchistic or other.

I pointed all this out to my friend, who remained silent for a while and then remarked in his characteristically casual and omniscient manner: "Oh, that fellow was half an idiot.

Although Winnie evidently thinks so, the issue is not clear, as Verloc attempted to carry out the act with no fatalities, and as simply as possible to retain his job, and care for his family.

Conrad's depiction of anarchism has an "enduring political relevance", although the focus is now largely concerned with the terrorist aspects that this entails.

Some critics, such as Fredrick R Karl,[19] think that the main political phenomenon in this novel is the modern age, as symbolised by the teeming, pullulating foggy streets of London (most notably in the cab ride taken by Winnie Verloc and Stevie).

It was published to favourable reviews, most agreeing with the view of The Times Literary Supplement that it "increase[d] Conrad's reputation, already of the highest".

The Independent calls it "[o]ne of Conrad's great city novels"[23] whilst The New York Times insists that it is "the most brilliant novelistic study of terrorism".

Don Foster, the literary attributionist who assisted the FBI, said that Kaczynski "seem[ed] to have felt that his family could not understand him without reading Conrad".

[12] Various scenes from the novel were also dramatised in Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent (1987), a 60-minute UK documentary featuring Frances Barber, Hywel Bennett, Jim Broadbent and Brian Glover.

[51] Conrad's novel has been adapted as operas by Simon Wills (2006), Michael Dellaira (2011), and Allen Reichman and Curtis Bryant (2013).