Ebenezer Cooke, a London poet and a virgin, goes off to the New World in search of his father. Barth`s historical novel is based on a 1708 poem by an obscure Maryland writer, who becomes the hero of this tale. The novel uses many of the conventions of the 18th-century novel: the journey motif, picaresque adventures, improbable coincidences, and digressive chapter headings, as well as the language.