The first of three of Barker’s novels featuring the semi-autobiographical narrator heroine Galesia, the other works being A Patch-Work Screen for the Ladies (1713) and The Lining of the Patch-Work Screen (1726). Barker was a Catholic convert and a strong Stuart supporter, new biographical research has revealed that her father was associated with the court of Charles I, and that she had family connections with the pro-Stuart Connocks. After the overthrow of James II by William of Orange in 1688, Barker left England to join the exiled court at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in France. It was in exile that Barker wrote many of her political poems which have only recently been published.

A story of a father’s attempt to rape his daughter. The daughter, Clarinthia, tells her own story, and Barker, in the Preface, recounts that she was prompted to write about this shocking subject because she had heard of a similar contemporary case “and so writ the Character to render it detestable”.