As a unnamed woman, known only as The Wanderer (although later identified as Juliet Granville) flees the Reign of Terror to England, where she finds herself alone—friendless and without means—in a foreign land.

Focusing on the difficulties women faced in gaining the independence, The Wanderer was part of a new genre of literature that grew out of the tumultuous period following the French Revolution in which authors examined the events of the past through fiction. The last novel to be written by Frances Burney, The Wanderer took fourteen years to write and was influenced partially by the author’s time as an exile in France.