The fictional town of Tiverton is the centre of these short stories by Alice Brown. Tiverton is based in New England, like many of Brown's other works, and is home to traditional, American families in the late 19th century. The various tales explore domestic life at this time and the gender balance between men and women.

Alice Brown is an American novelist and short-story writer. She is best known for her tales about New England and as a writer of local colour stories. Born in New Hampshire in 1857, Brown's stories often portray a female protagonist in a domestic setting. Her first novel, 'Stratford-by-the-Sea', was published in 1884. It cemented Brown as part of the Boston literary scene, but by the time she died in 1948 (aged 91), many of her stories had been forgotten about and were no longer being published.