[1] Althea Dacres and her aunt Mrs. Trevyllian leave their home in the west of England to visit Sir Audley, Althea's father, at his home in London.
From there they travel into Hertfordshire to visit a Mrs. Polwarth, a friend of Mrs. Trevyllian's, only to discover that she is gravely ill. Mrs. Trevyllian stays to nurse her friend, and Althea returns to London to stay at her father's house, where she receives a cold reception from Lady Dacres and especially from her servant, Morris.
Marchmont was first printed in four volumes and sold by the London publisher Sampson Low in 1796.
Fletcher writes Marchmont was "in general very well received and represented in columes of extracts, a good indicator of popularity, more often than other novels of that year.
For example, one reviewer writes:The present novel is certainly spun out in the beginning, and wound up too hastily at the conclusion; still the design of showing the misery, which unprincipled men of the law may bring on the innocent, is well imagined.