Second only in sales to Uncle Tom's Cabin during the nineteenth century, The Lamplighter tells the story of the development of a young, orphaned girl into a resilient, capable young woman who gets her man - her childhood compatriot. Gerty is an orphaned hellion, physically and mentally abused by the brutal and miserly Nan Grant: "No one loved her, and she loved no one; no one treated her kindly; no one tried to make her happy, or cared whether she were so. She was but eight years old and all alone in the world." Gerty is rescued by Trueman Flint, a kindly lamplighter who teaches her about love and respect. A second teacher enters in the form of saintly, blind Emily Graham, who brings a reverence for God into Gerty's life. Maria Susanna Cummins was an American novelist. The Lamplighter is a sentimental book one reviewer calling it "one of the most original and natural narratives". Within eight weeks of first being published, it sold 40,000 copies and totaled 70,000 by the end of its first year in print. Cummins wrote other books, including Mabel Vaughan, none of which had the same success