[1] The plot centers around an adopted Canterbury noblewoman named Irene, her marriage to nobleman Sir John Dunfern, and her subsequent affair and elopement with her tutor.

It has been widely considered one of the worst books of all time since its publication, and has been panned by critics for its excessive purple prose and poorly-constructed plot.

Noble Sir John Dunfern makes a sudden decision to marry Irene Iddesleigh, an orphan adopted by a nobleman.

While Irene assuages Sir John's early suspicions of her infidelity, he later finds love letters she received from Oscar dated after the marriage.

Mysteriously, he then regains them; after telling Hugh the truth about his mother, he reveals just before dying that he had originally planned to release Irene on the day she escaped.

In this foreword, she attacks "this so-called Barry Pain" for "criticis[ing] a work the depth of which fails to reach the solving power of his borrowed, and, he'd have you believe, varied talent."

Going, on, she says she cares nothing "for the opinion of half-starved upstarts, who don the garb of a shabby-genteel, and fain would feed the mind of the people with the worthless scraps of stolen fancies.

He describes Ros' writing style as "hav[ing] the merit of concealing thought and plot...the mind rocks along through its pages in delirium", concluding that it is "rather a unique literary curiosity, which is its only value to the reader."