It's 1985 in England, at least on the calendar; the Crimean War is in its hundred-and-thirty-first year; time travel is nothing new; Japanese tourists slip in and out of Victorian novels; and the literary branch of the special police, led gamely by the beguiling Thursday Next, are pursuing Acheron Hades, who has stolen the manuscript of "Martin Chuzzlewit" and set his sights on kidnapping Jane Eyre, a theft that could have disastrous consequences fro Bronte lovers who like their story straight. This rambunctious caper could be taken as a warning about what might happen if society considered literature really important - like say, energy futures or accounting.