The Marshlanders is environmental fiction set in an invented pre-modern landscape where a money economy seeks to destroy self-sufficient, sustainable communities by draining their marshes for agriculture. The heroes, Clare and William, are adopted as children by a community of marsh dwellers and coastal farmers. William’s father, a pharmacist, is murdered by an alliance of clergymen and apothecaries and Clare, at the age of eight, barely escapes with her life when ministers work up a mob to kill her during a public shaming of her mother.