The Foundling and Fortune's Fool paint an authentic picture of the province of South Australia and the colony of Victoria in the formative years of European settlement. Abandoned as a baby, taunted as a child, Julia Stephen sails for the new world of South Australia from the old world of Devon, England with her adopted Methodist family. When Julia settles in the copper company township of Kooringa in the bush north of Adelaide, her past returns to haunt her in the deadly shadow of the Burra Burra Mine. Quick-witted and resourceful, she makes her way east seeking her Cornish lover, and becomes one of the most successful women on the Ballaarat goldfields - a place of glittering promise and deep despair. When tensions erupt into bloody rebellion at Eureka, Julia Stephen's life is transformed beyond her wildest dreams.