 The book concerns the quest of Hallblithe of the House of the Raven to rescue his fiancée the Hostage, who has been kidnapped by pirates, which ultimately takes him to the utopian Land of the Glittering Plain, also known as the Acre of the Undying or the Land of the Living Men, whose inhabitants are supposedly immortal.First printed in "The English Illustrated Magazine", Vol.VII, 1890, the story was printed in book form the following year by the Kelmscott Press, Morris's own newly founded private press.