The historian C V Wedgwood wrote the preface to a 1960 edition of the book, in which she reveals that the novel was written partly at the instigation of Macaulay's publisher, John Murray, who had asked for something to shed light on the background to her first novel, Abbots Verney (1906).

Conybeare himself is an atheist, but the studious Julian attends church with her friend Meg Yarde, granddaughter of the local squire.

Dr Conybeare deplores the lack of educational opportunities for women, and has Julian privately tutored in the classics by Herrick, who also instils in her a love for literature, particularly poetry.

When an elderly local woman is accused of witchcraft, Conybeare and his daughter hide her in their home, but she is discovered and sentenced to be burned at the stake.

The second part of the novel takes place mainly in Cambridge, where Julian is thrilled to find herself in the company of many prominent poets and philosophers, and begins attending classes given by Henry More to selected young ladies.

She is largely unaware of the political upheavals that threaten to escalate into war, but is concerned when her brother Kit converts to Catholicism without their father's knowledge.

Her death coincides with the execution of the king's favourite, Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, an alumnus of Cleveland's college, to whom she had been in the process of writing an epitaph.