Epigraphs are like little appetizers to the great entrée of a story. They illuminate important aspects of the story, and they get us headed in the right direction.
To H.G. Wells: The chronicler of Mr Lewisham's love/ the biographer of Kipps and the historian of the ages to come/ this simple tale of the nineteenth century/ is affectionately offered
Whats up with the epigraph?
Where to begin? Basically, Conrad had a tenuous friendship with the science fiction juggernaut H.G. Wells (author of The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds).
However, it is important to know that Conrad and Wells' friendship pretty much died the same year that The Secret Agent was published. This might be because Wells had recently published two books—Mankind in the Making (1903) and A Modern Utopia (1905) that outlined the same kind of socialist future that Conrad ruthlessly satirizes in the figure of Michaelis.
It could very well be that Conrad's generous tribute to Wells is actually a sort of final payment of friendship, a farewell as their ideas become irreconcilable. On the other hand, Conrad might be totally joking in giving this praise… he is a pretty bitingly sarcastic dude.
Calling Wells the "biographer of Kipps" is an allusion to Wells novel Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul, whose title might have actually inspired the "A Simple Tale" part of The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale. Hmm. So maybe Conrad is actually being earnest?