[1] The book was first serialized anonymously in Blackwood's Magazine from April 1848 to October 1849, and first published in novel form (in three volumes) in Britain in 1849.

[3] A synopsis of the plot from a 1910 reference work states: The Caxtons are Austin Caxton, a scholar engaged on a great work, "The History of Human Error;" his wife Kitty, much his junior; his brother Roland, the Captain, who has served in the Napoleonic campaigns; the two children of the latter, Herbert and Blanche; and Austin's son, Pisistratus, who tells the story.

There Pisistratus, who has had a good school education, though he has not yet entered the university, is offered the position of secretary to Mr. Trevanion, a leader in Parliament.

Lady Ellinor, Mr. Trevanion's wife, was loved as a girl by Roland and Austin Caxton; but she had passed them both by to make a marriage better suited to an ambitious woman.

By a freak of fate Pisistratus now falls in love with her daughter Fannie; and when he finds that his suit is hopeless, he gives up his position under Mr. Trevanion, and enters Cambridge University, where his college course is soon closed by the financial troubles of his father.