Prisoners of Hope

Prisoners of Hope (1898) is the first novel by the Virginia-born writer Mary Johnston. An action-adventure story and romance set in Gloucester County in 1663, the novel is based in part on the Gloucester County Conspiracy, a planned rebellion by indentured servants who intended to march to the home of Governor Sir William Berkeley and demand their freedom. The hero of Prisoners of Hope is Godfrey Landless, a convict laborer in Virginia who once fought for Oliver Cromwell. Landless takes charge in planning a servant rebellion, only to fall in love with his master's daughter, Patricia. When his plans are revealed, Landless is imprisoned, but eventually wins Patricia's love by saving her from a fictional band of Virginia Indians. Johnston portrays colonial Virginia much as Lost Cause writers and novelists painted the antebellum South: as an idyllic place where an enslaved African.