In the schoolroom of a country estate in the 1800s, Thomasina is discovering the truth about sex. In the same room about 200 years later, a group of academics are still trying to work it out. This contemporary classic tells the story of a precocious pupil and her tutor with farcical flair. Cutting insults, love rivalries of Byronic standard and poetry of a much lower one fly across the schoolroom table. In the present day, Bernard, a literature academic, has both Romantic and romantic endeavours of his own.