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First American trade edition, possibly first impression. Hard cover, 12mo, in blue cloth, with titles blocked in gold to front in a reverse printed art deco framework, with the publisher's ship logo below and also to the spine. Top edge light brown stain. **EDITION NOTES: All points satisfied of Supino's A.17.14.0, except for the inclusion of the ship logo to the bottom right of half title page. (No other imprint descriptions in Supino seem to match.) Supino explains the delay of the printing of the first American edition to Spring 1914 due to unexpected production delays to the English version. (p.236) **COLLATION: unsigned. [i-vii], viii, [1-2] 3-468, [4]. **CONDITION: Very Good: Spine is a bit darkened and dulled. Front logo gilt likewise a bit dulled. Light wear to tips and at head and tale of spine. Endpapers a bit browned, but text lighter. Hinges in order. Clean and square. Now in mylar.**Conrad's 1914 novel "Chance," represents an interesting change of emphasis from the author's predominantly maritime novels, being set on land, although sea captains, sailing ships, yachting and tales of the far seas are, of course, involved in the plot. Most of the action, however, takes place onshore; at the London docks, in the shipping offices, counting houses and countryside of the Essex marshes, or in London, Germany and other terrestrial territories. Conrad creates a psychologically complex female main character, Miss Flora de Barral, the daughter of a disgraced, imprisoned financier and hapless con-man. She undergoes a series of tragedies due to the ruin of the family reputation, only revealed in the author's modern, almost circular narrative, made confusing by the somewhat salty sympathies (or lack thereof) of Conrad's oft-reused character of Capt. Marlow, (ret.) A more modern and sympathetic foil appears in the character of freshly-minted second mate, Charles Powell, who will take an important role in the second half of the book. Taken financial advantage of by a scheming governess and her unsavory male companion, Flora flees to her only friend, Mrs. Fyne and her husband, who are very happy to help the desperate young woman until she apparently elopes upon the "Ferndale" with Mrs. F.'s brother, Captain Armstrong, putting the family's good name at risk, in a hugely hypocritical reversal. **This book was the Author's most lucrative, securing Joseph Conrad commercial success. It was written in a speedy nine months just before the outbreak of World War I. (D. Baldwin, in Stape, 2015, p. 136.) Keating p. 226. Supino p. 236-237 and Plate 15. See J.H. Stape, edit., "The New Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad," Cambridge Univ. Press, 2015.
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