This biography investigates how the private lives and domestic relationships of William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect influenced their public political campaigns against the slave trade. Anne Stott, a historian specializing in 18th and 19th-century British social history, utilizes previously under-examined family correspondence to construct her argument. She posits that the abolitionist movement was deeply rooted in the specific interpersonal dynamics, religious convictions, and gender roles of the Clapham circle.

Historians and scholars of the period frequently cite this work for its nuanced look at the intersection of private morality and public reform. Readers often note that the prose is accessible while maintaining a high level of academic rigor regarding the social context of the era.