"From the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, a domestic comedy that examines slavery, Protestant theology, and gender differences in early America."

Published in 1859, Harriet Beecher Stowe's third novel is set in 18th-century Newport, Rhode Island, a community known both for its piety and its involvement in the slave trade. Mary Scudder lives with her widowed mother and their boarder Samuel Hopkins, a Calvinist theologian who preaches against slavery. Mary loves James Marvyn, but her mother opposes a union with a skeptic. When James drowns at sea, she persuades Mary to marry Dr. Hopkins.