The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale is an example of Conrad's later political writing, which moved away from his earlier, seafaring tales. The spy Mr. Verloc moves through London where he encounters anarchism, terrorism and revolutionary groups. Conrad also deals with the notion of exploitation.

The novel's treatment of terrorism caused it to be one of the three most cited works of literature in the American media post Spetember 11, 2001.

Though his extraordinary talent went largely unrecognized during his own lifetime, British painter and poet William Blake is now regarded as one of the most important creative figures of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. Characterized by their mystical but accessible quality, Blake's poems prefigured the Romantic movement that would take hold later in the 1800s. This volume brings together Blake's best-known verse.