The work opens with an unnamed narrator listening to the reading of a manuscript written many years ago by a now dead young governess. The governess relates that soon after arriving to work in the house she learns that her predecessor had died under mysterious circumstances. As the tale unfolds the reader has room to doubt the reality of the evil that the governess feels is approaching.

1872 Best Seller.

In his day E. P. Roe was a bigger seller than Mark Twain.

A story of the Chicago fire.

"We accord a hearty commendation to this work. The narrative is vigorous, often intense, but rarely if ever melodramatic. Its language is usually no less chaste than forcible and impressive. It betrays a power of invention and description which is not met with every day in the best of writers of popular fiction." -- Dr. Ripley, in the New York Tribune (contemporary review)

1895 Best Seller.

Sketches of rural Scottish life based on the authors experiences as a minister in Perthshire.

1859 Best Seller.

The novel follows the orphaned Beulah from childhood in the Antebellum South through a troubled and stormy struggle for independence.