Chance: A Tale in Two Parts

by Joseph Conrad, Allan Simmons (Editor), Michael Foster (Editor), Susan Jones (Introduction)

Overview

Published in 1914, Joseph Conrad's Chance, with its female protagonist, Flora de Barral, and happy ending, represented a new departure in his writings. Aided by the robust advertising efforts of his American publisher, Doubleday, Page, Chance was also his first major financial success. This comprehensive critical edition includes an introduction to the novel's origins and sources, while explanatory notes detail literary and historical references, identify real-life places and people, and indicate borrowings and Gallicisms. A textual essay and its accompanying apparatus lay out the history of composition and publication, detailing interventions made by Conrad's typists, compositors, and editors. Also included are appendices, a glossary of nautical terms, a genealogy of the text, and reproductions of early drafts. By returning to (and respecting) Conrad's early manuscript and typescript states, this edition presents Chance and its preface in a form more authoritative than any so far printed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781009618243
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	02/28/2026
Series:	Cambridge Edition of the Works of Joseph Conrad
Pages:	774
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 1.50(h) x 9.50(d)

About the Author

Allan H. Simmons is General Editor of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Joseph Conrad, for which he has edited several volumes, including An Outcast of the Islands (2016) and A Set of Six (2021). He is Advisory Editor of The Conradian: Journal of the Joseph Conrad Society.

Michael Foster is Programme Director for English Language and Literature at St Mary's University, Twickenham, and has previously worked as an English language teacher in Taiwan, France, and Japan. He co-edited, with Allan Simmons, Cambridge University Press's 2021 edition of A Set of Six, also in this series.

Susan Jones is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Oxford. She writes on Joseph Conrad, Samuel Beckett, Modernism and the history and aesthetics of dance. Her previous books include Conrad and Women (1999) and Literature, Modernism and Dance (2013).

Date of Birth:

December 3, 1857

Date of Death:

August 3, 1924

Place of Birth:

Berdiczew, Podolia, Russia

Place of Death:

Bishopsbourne, Kent, England

Education:

Tutored in Switzerland. Self-taught in classical literature. Attended maritime school in Marseilles, France

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations; General Editors' Preface; Acknowledgements; Chronology; Abbreviations and Note on Editions; Introduction; Chance, a Tale in Two Parts; The Texts: An Essay; Apparatus; Textual Notes; Appendices; Explanatory Notes; Glossary of Nautical Terms.