Sir Henry Rider Haggard was an English writer of adventure novels set mostly in Africa, and a founder of the Lost World literary genre. Stella Fregelius is a story of the overlapping fates of three people in a northern coastal region of England. The story follows Morris Monk, an aspiring inventor, as he gets engaged to his cousin, Mary Porson, and soon complicates things by falling in love with the daughter of the new church rector, Stella Fregelius. And Mr. Meeson's Will is the story of Mr. Meeson, the greedy and wealthy owner of a publishing house. Augusta Smithers is a young writer who enters into an unfair contract with Meeson. In order to make a fresh start she boards a steamer bound for New Zealand only to find her enemy is on the same ship.