Content Warning: This section of the guide features discussions of ableism, religious intolerance and bigotry, sexual assault, enslavement, sexism, suicide, and emotional abuse.

The story begins on a rainy night on March 19th, 1775, at the Maypole Inn in Chigwell, a village just outside of London. John Willet, the landlord of the Maypole, sits by the fire with three of his cronies: Tom Cobb, Phil Parkes, and Solomon Daisy, the parish clerk. Also at the Maypole is John’s 20-year-old son, Joe—whom John thinks of as an impetuous child—and a mysterious stranger. (The stranger is revealed to be Barnaby Rudge Sr. in Chapter 56 of the novel, and will be referred to in this study guide as “the stranger” until then).

When the stranger begins to ask questions about the Warren, a manor house nearby, Solomon Daisy recounts a tale of what happened exactly 22 years before that night. The owner of the Warren, Reuben Haredale, lived with his daughter Emma, two female servants, a gardener, and his steward, Barnaby Rudge Sr. That night, he was found murdered in his bedroom and the steward and gardener were missing. Months later, a body in the steward’s clothes was found, leading everyone to assume the gardener had murdered both.