After being offered a 100,000 pound advance to write a book on the twentieth century, a historian/writer struggling with depression takes to London to begin this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

A rambunctious teenager with an inquisitive mind causes much grief for all his New England family and neighbors when he visits them in the summer of 1914, on the eve of World War I.

An American writer travels to Sophia where he meets a famous poetess. He falls in love with her and her attitude.

A man in a failing marriage embarks on yet another love affair with a married woman, teaching him about his own sexual escapist tendencies.

Drawing from Almeda Roth’s 1873 poetry collection Offerings and Roth’s town newspaper the Vidette, an unnamed researcher guides the reader through a rich biography of Roth’s personal affairs, love interest, and ultimate death.

A professor finds himself attracted to one of his students, allowing her to skip the final exams - but her resultant grade causes her to lash out at him and reveal harsh truths about his own life that he finds difficult to accept.

A woman grows obsessed with a single book from the time she is a young adult to her death in old age, as the book's meaning changes for her over time.

A man recalls his intimate friendship with his former English professor, who resolved to fuel his unsatisfied desire for playwriting during the time they were apart. In their reunion decades later, instead of the brilliant play he promised, the professor shows his former student a disturbing product of his mental instability.

Upon returning to Paris after a decade-long hiatus wandering the French countryside and writing an epic, a poet encounters an enigmatic young woman who believes he is a god and wants to be his disciple,

A teacher on the Lower East side meets a friendly man with a presence resembling a dead English poet.