[2] Father Bombo is a contender "by virtue of its early date, its undeniably native origin and materials," the future literary contributions of Freneau and Brackenridge, and the significant political careers of their College of New Jersey classmates, who included James Madison and Aaron Burr.
[5] As punishment for plagiarizing the classical Syrian satirist Lucian, Father Reynardine Bombo is commanded by an apparition of the "famous prophet Mahomet" to "take a long and tedious Journey to Mecca" on foot.
Headed for the harbor of New York, Bombo sets off from his New Jersey "castle" (the fictional stand-in for the college's Nassau Hall) clothed in a turban and a "Turkish vest".
[7] Seeking quarter in inns, houses of ill fame, and at his father's castle on Long Island, Bombo initiates a series of angry disputes when the characters he encounters fail to show the respect and deference that is his due as a pilgrim.
While sailing across the Atlantic, Bombo is tied to the ship's yard-arm for propositioning the captain's wife and instigating a mutiny, abducted by French then Irish privateers, and finally set adrift in a barrel.
In Mecca, Bombo visits the mosque that purportedly contains the tomb of Mahomet, wherein he deposits dictionaries "in one of the most sacred closets of the place" in order to complete his penance and "pacify the Ghost of Lucian.
[5] Prior to its rediscovery, only portions of the novel's third and final book were known to have been preserved in the notebook manuscript of Whig Society member William Bradford, a literary collaborator of Freneau and Brackenridge who would later become U.S. Attorney General.