In The Fraud, Eliza's lover Frances is a passionate abolitionist whose commitment to the cause infects Eliza with a similar sense of urgency. Britain's Slavery Abolition Act was passed in 1833, freeing at least 800,000 people from bondage in the Caribbean, South America, and Canada. The act followed decades of campaigns from abolitionist groups, who had been fighting to end the practice since the 1780s. An often-overlooked group who were influential in the fight to end slavery were women – figures such as Hannah More, Mary Prince, and Elizabeth Heyrick (whose house Eliza and Frances visit in The Fraud) were pivotal to the abolitionist cause.

Hannah More wrote pamphlets and poems which helped popularize the abolitionist cause in its early days. In 1788 she wrote "Slavery, A Poem" to coincide with the first big parliamentary debate regarding the abolition of the slave trade, led by her friend William Wilberforce. The poem is a dramatic depiction of the life of an enslaved woman,...