Wendy Toye

In turn-of-the-century London a young music publisher fights both competitors and piracy in a time where author's royalties were still unprotected.

As the threat of Napoleonic invasion looms ever closer, a German duke and potential ally of England falls for a pretty ballerina.

A tramp falls asleep in the woods. He dreams of observing a range of insects that stand in for various human characteristics in terms of their lifestyle and morality: the flighty, vain butterfly, the obsequious, self-serving dung beetle, the ants, whose increasingly mechanized behavior leads to a militaristic society.

A proper Edwardian lady patiently endures the ever-increasing disruption to her quiet household when her Truelove gives her all the items from the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas."