It chronicles the lives of three generations of performers on the Cotton Blossom, a floating theater on a steamboat that travels between small towns along the banks of the Mississippi River, from the 1880s to the 1920s.

The story moves from the Reconstruction Era riverboat to Gilded Age Chicago to Roaring Twenties New York, and finally returns to the Mississippi River.

In August 1924, Edna Ferber watched as the opening performance of her play Minick (co-written with George S. Kaufman) was disrupted by an invasion of bats that had been nesting undetected in the chandeliers and dome of the playhouse.

As the crew recovered from this debacle, Winthrop Ames, the show's producer, jokingly remarked: "Next time... we won't bother with tryouts.

With song, dance, and dramatic productions, show boats provided entertainment for small riverside towns that were otherwise quite isolated.

Ferber, who had never heard of show boats, was immediately intrigued: "Here, I thought, was one of the most melodramatic and gorgeous bits of Americana that had ever come my way.

"[1]In 1925, Ferber traveled to Bath, North Carolina, and spent four days aboard one of the few remaining show boats in the country, the James Adams Floating Theatre, which plied the Pamlico River and Great Dismal Swamp Canal.

The mix of romance, realistic depiction of racial issues, and nostalgia for a vanishing American past was an immediate hit with the public, and the novel was number one on the bestseller lists for twelve weeks.

"[3]By the time the James Adams Floating Theatre was destroyed by fire in 1941, the era of show boats had ended, supplanted by the motion pictures theater.

Other members of the crew are Pete, the engineer of the towboat Mollie Able, which propels the show boat; Frank the utility man; and Windy McClain, the pilot.

When the troupe arrives in fictional Lemoyne, Mississippi, Pete steals Julie's picture from the box office and takes it to the local sheriff.

Months later, Magnolia has had a baby daughter, whom she names Kim (because she was born at the moment when the Cotton Blossom was at the convergence on the Mississippi of the states of Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri).

In the big city, the couple is alternately rich and poor, depending on Ravenal's gambling winnings (he does not try to find regular work, and cheats on Magnolia with prostitutes).

Based only on Ferber's novel, it was dramatised by Moya O'Shea, produced/directed by Tracey Neale, and starred Lysette Anthony as Kim, Samantha Spiro as Magnolia, Laurel Lefkow as Parthy, Morgan Deare as Cap'n Andy, Ryan McCluskey as Gaylord and Nonso Anozie as Jo, with original music by Neil Brand.