Born on a plantation in North Carolina, the young and beautiful Frances Emily Steele left home at age eighteen to seek her fortune across the sea. She pursued her life and loves from Edinburgh to Dublin to London. Adventures carried her from a life of privilege in Edinburgh, to the poverty of rural Ireland during the potato famine, and on to the halls of British power. Fanny dared to break free from the repression of Victorian womanhood to become a politically powerful figure who helped to topple a head of state during the Great Hunger. Her companions ranged from aristocrats to rural vigilantes; her enemies from Tories to common villains. Following in the footsteps of Mary Wollstonecroft, Madam de Staël, and George Sand, Fanny pursued her destiny of self-fulfillment and the furthering of women's rights.