The Secret Agent

Content warning: This section of the guide discusses suicide, abuse, and ableism.

Adolf Verloc runs a store in Soho, London, in the 1880s. The neighborhood is run-down and poor, providing a home to many immigrants. Verloc’s store sells pornography, contraceptives, and other illicit material. As a result, most of his clientele visits the store in secret. They favor discretion. Verloc lives behind the store with his family. He is large-bodied and “thoroughly domesticated” (4). Winnie Verloc, his wife, is largely indifferent to everything around her. She runs the house and occasionally helps in her husband’s store. Her brother, Stevie, has an unnamed cognitive disability. He is quiet and sensitive. When he was 14, however, he was tricked by a pair of office workers into setting off fireworks in a building. Following the incident, the people around Stevie restricted his movements. He was told to stay in the back of the boarding house which was run by his mother.

Mr. Verloc met Winnie while renting a room in the boarding house. They married and moved into the home where they currently reside. Winnie’s mother also lives with them, appreciating the way in which her son-in-law is able to support her daughter, Stevie, and herself.