Truthful Pictures examines novels and sermons written in the antebellum south pre-Civil War, in particular those written after the 1851 publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It begins with a historical overview of the function of women writers in American literature. It then explores the way in which Holy Scripture was perverted in Southern sermons in order to allow the continued enslavement of one group of people by another. Furthermore, it continues with the way in which this same perversion of Scripture appeared in different forms in the novels written by women in the antebellum South.