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Most readers know Joseph Conrad for creating Marlow's harrowing journey through the African Congo in Heart of Darkness. Conrad was adept at capturing the physical and cultural experiences he gleaned from 15 years at sea, but he also wrote political thrillers, essays, and plays based on his own short stories. His best works tend to be brief, but pack in a remarkable perspicacity about humanity's deepest faults.

Flora de Barral is left to fend for herself at age fifteen, after her father is imprisoned. Conrad uses her consequent struggles to find a place in the world and deal with the moral hypocrisy that surrounds her as a basis to explore her psychological transformation from naive and tragic young woman to a person of confidence and self-respect. Conrad's books often reflect his exploration of the issues of character and personal development, and this work is a good example of this bias. Ambitious in both writing and plot, it is a condemnation of the inherent unfairness of the moral posturings of his time.