Ellen is one of several examples of Anti-Tom literature, a literary subgenre that emerged in the Southern United States in response to the 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, which had been criticised in the South as inaccurately depicting slaveholding and the attitudes of slaveowners in general.

[1] Like other anti-Tom novels such as The Planter's Northern Bride by Caroline Lee Hentz,[2] Ellen acts largely as a criticism of abolitionism rather than a defence of slavery, highlighting the corruption within abolitionist movements such as the Underground Railroad.

[3] The story follows Ellen, the daughter of a Southern mother from Louisiana and a Northern father.

Ellen, now older and wishing to find her father, sets off into the Northern United States where she discovers numerous atrocities being committed by the Northerners that far outrank the South in terms of oppression and cruelty.

It is during her travels that Ellen comes across Parson Blake, an evil abolitionist priest who encourages abolitionism more to steal Southern wealth rather than to aid runaway slaves.