This volume contains two absolutely enchanting tales about the Isles of Scilly:-

• The rescue of an infant from a shipwreck and events in his early life (Tom Tiddler’s Ground).
• The influence of the Lord Proprietor and the Commandant of the military defences (Major Vigoreux) and the unexpected appearance, following the grounding of a trans - Atlantic steamship, of a mysterious, beautiful woman who changes peoples’ lives for ever.

Scilly’s economy was transformed by the arrival of the steam railway in Cornwall enabling exports of millions of daffodils to Covent Garden. Given its importance to Scillonians this volume includes a charming study of daffodils (The Daffodil in Cornwall) which appeared in The Cornish Magazine, a short lived periodical edited by Q.

Q’s writings can be categorised as adventure, romance or proto-feminist; the stories in this volume demonstrate that vividly.

When basing his fiction on actual events of real locations, Q tended to change the names of the locations he wrote about. In these stories, the Isles of Scilly are referred to merely as The Islands.

• Q’s St. Lide’s is actually St. Mary’s;
• Brefar is Bryher;
• Saaron is really Samson whilst his name for St. Agnes is St. Anne’s;
• Tresco becomes Iniscawe and;
• the famous Tresco Abbey is simply The Abbey.
  

Some headlands are fictional but those that are identifiable are recorded in the notes completing this volume.

Due to fears of a Spanish invasion, fortification of The Isles of Scilly began in the 1590s with the major military site being The Garrison on St. Mary’s. During the Civil War, Scilly was held by Royalist forces.

Whilst the characters are fictitous there really was a Lord Protector of the Isles of Scilly, which was the self styled title of Augustus Smith who leased Scilly from the Duchy of Cornwall in 1834. This volume concludes with a brief biography of Smith which describes his transformative influence on Scilly.