The Uncalled explores the spiritual struggles of a white minister Frederick Brent, who had been abandoned as a child by his alcoholic father and raised by a virtuous white spinster, Hester Prime.

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Born to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky before the American Civil War, Dunbar began writing stories and verse when he was a child. In his novels Dunbar explored lives and issues in white culture.