As Stephen Calvert pursues marriage, he encounters baffling difficulties in courting two different women. Struggling to comprehend his circumstances, and on the brink of desperate action, he realizes that at the root of his misfortune is a mystery to be solved.

The eponymous narrator relates his story while living a solitary existence in a mountainous wilderness, adopted as a refuge from his prior life of moral corruption and debauch. Originally published in serialized form, Calvert was projected to be a five part narrative but was abandoned after completion of just the first part. Although the story contained in this first part is resolved, we are left wondering how the other four parts may have led to his exile.

Memoirs of Stephen Calvert is significant in being the first American novel to depict gay male sexuality (published in 1799-1800).