Joseph Conrad was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. Chance is narrated by Conrad's regular narrator, Charles Marlow, but there are also some other narrators take up the story at different points. The novel is also unusual among its author's works for its focus on a female character, Flora de Barral. The narrators describe and attempt to interpret various episodes in the life of the Miss de Barral, the daughter of a convicted swindler, named Smith de Barral.