In Helen Fleetwood Tonna provides a semi-fictional account of the deplorable conditions created by the factory system. The novel concerns the fate of a village orphan, Helen Fleetwood, who has been adopted by the poor widow Green and raised together with her grandchildren in a rented cottage in the agricultural South. Tonna provided shocking evidence of the exploitation of children in factories, pointing out that labouring children were the most vulnerable victims in an industrial society because not only their bodies but also their minds were adversely affected by factory work. The children are overworked, undernourished, and lack parental and religious guidance.