The book tells the story of Oscar Hopkins, an Anglicanpriest from Devon, England, and Lucinda Leplastrier, a young Australian heiress, who are both traveling to Australia by ship. It explores their adventures on the large continent.
They meet on a ship to Australia, where Lucinda has bought a glass factory, having long been fascinated by the material. Oscar had grown up as the son of a fundamentalist Brethren of Plymouth minister and naturalist. He has used his observation of nature as a sign from God for something less severe, and believes he has joined a more compassionate church with the Anglicans.
The travelers discover that they are both gamblers, one obsessive, the other compulsive. Lucinda bets Oscar that he cannot transport a glass church (which will be built by her factory in Sydney) from there to a remote settlement at Bellingen, some 400 km up the New South Wales coast. This bet changes both their lives forever.
Carey also noted in his novel some material that he took directly from a book of natural history by the senior Gosse. He concentrates on visual descriptions and information, with glass as a major image and metaphor.[4][5]
