Chance

We rely on your support to help us keep producing beautiful, free, and unrestricted editions of literature for the digital age. Will you support our efforts with a donation ? Flora de Barral is the daughter of a successful banker. When he's tried and convicted of fraud, her prosperous life turns miserable. While on the brink of suicide, she meets an older sea captain and marries him as a means of escape. Her dramatic life is recounted by several characters, but mainly by Marlow, Conrad's favorite recurring narrator. Chance , serialized in 1912 and published as a book the following year, is Conrad's only novel with a female protagonist. It was also his first commercially successful novel, despite its complex narrative structure. Joseph Conrad (died 1924) was a major literary figure of the early 20th century. Their work has endured across generations and continues to be read and studied worldwide. As a work of classic literary fiction, Chance exemplifies the narrative craft and social insight that defined great storytelling of its era. Literary fiction of this period was characterized by careful attention to character psychology, social milieu, and the moral questions that animated public discourse.