David, for what it's worth, I have read all of Joseph Conrad's fiction (14 novels, 28 stories). For me it is the perfect combination of modern language and deep, often dark victorian fiction. In a world that was still very large, Conrad wrote about 4 continents. And 1900 was not too early for alarmingly modern themes, like Latin American revolution ('Nostromo') and terrorism ('The Secret Agent'). Anyway, he's my fave.