It is set partly in Maryland and partly in London, England, during the American revolutionary era Foreword The novel opens with a fictitious foreword, a brief note dated 1876, in which the purported editor of the memoirs, Daniel Clapsaddle Carvel, claims that they are just as his grandfather, Richard Carvel, wrote them, all the more realistic for their imperfections.

Richard describes their way of life, his growing love for his neighbor, Dorothy Manners, and the hostility of his uncle, Grafton Carvel.

Richard witnesses a demonstration against a tax collector in Annapolis as a result of the Stamp Act 1765 and grieves his grandfather by his adoption of revolutionary political views.

The end of the book sees Richard back in Maryland as master of Carvel Hall, married to his childhood sweetheart.

The review for the New York Times Saturday Review in July 1899 described Richard Carvel as "a notable novel... an event of importance in American fiction", going on to say that it was "the most extensive piece of semi-historical fiction which has yet come from an American hand... the skill with which the materials have been handled justifies the largeness of the plan".

[2] The review in the New York Tribune described the book as "a serious historical novel, embracing a romantic courtship and many events on land and sea, in Maryland and in England, which involve famous personages like Washington, Fox and Horace Walpole."

The reviewer took issue with the characterization, saying that the principal characters fail "to get themselves bodied forth in absolute reality," but concluded that "Richard Carvel is a remarkably workmanlike production, considering the present limitations of the author.

[4] In November 1899, Richard Carvel provoked a mild controversy in the pages of the New York Times Saturday Review when an anonymous letter writer pointed out certain similarities between the "now famous" novel and Hugh Wynne – Free Quaker by Silas Weir Mitchell, making a veiled accusation of plagiarism.

[7] A later assessment considers the authenticity of the narrative the reason for its remarkable success: "Richard Carvel (1899) is a romantic historical novel of the American Revolutionary period.

[8] Edward Everett Rose adapted the novel for the stage, and Richard Carvel, the play, appeared on Broadway between September 1900 and January 1901.

"[10] When Winston Churchill wrote Richard Carvel, he was staying as a paying guest at a Georgian mansion in Annapolis now known as the William Paca House.

The Carvel Hall Hotel became very popular, notably with visiting midshipmen, as it was near the United States Naval Academy.

When Mr. Churchill was a cadet at Annapolis, before the modern part of the Carvel Hall hotel was built, there were the remains of terraced gardens back of the old mansion, stepping down to an old spring house, and a rivulet which flowed through the grounds was full of watercress.

[12]The Tribune in late 1899 reported that Winston Churchill was building a house in Vermont which he proposed to call Carvel Hall.