Short answers, pulled from the story.
The story first appeared as a three-part serial in Blackwood's Magazine during February, March, and April of 1899. The February issue marked the magazine's 1000th edition and was released as a special edition.
Literary researchers have identified more than twenty historical figures who might have inspired the character Kurtz. Biographer Norman Sherry argued that Léon Rom served as the main model while later scholars refuted this specific hypothesis.
Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe delivered a public lecture titled An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness in 1975. He described the novella as an offensive and deplorable book that dehumanized Africans.
Conrad wrote the narrative eight years after returning home from his journey up the Lualaba River toward Kindu. His travel journals from this period provided the foundation for the story he would write.
Francis Ford Coppola released his film Apocalypse Now in 1979 which transposed the setting from the Congo to Vietnam and Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Martin Sheen starred as Captain Benjamin L. Willard assigned to terminate the command of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz played by Marlon Brando.