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In this parallel world, the United Kingdom and Imperial Russia have fought the Crimean War for more than a century. Britain itself is a police state, spearheaded in fact by the Goliath Corporation, in which literary questions (especially the Shakespearean authorship) are often fought out in the streets and in the halls of government. Maintaining the integrity of the English people's literary heritage is important enough for a special branch of the police, SpecOps-27, to be devoted to preserving works of literature from destruction or modification.

SpecOps literary detective Thursday Next is temporarily transferred from the London to SpecOps-5 to help them apprehend the third most wanted criminal in the world, Acheron Hades. Due to a prior acquaintance with Hades, Next comes closer to capturing him than anyone else has. While she's recuperating from her injuries, she reads Jane Eyre, one of her favorite books when she was younger, and has a flashbackAs in film, a flashback in literature is a technique which takes the narrative back in time from the point the story has reached, to recount events that happened before and give the " back-story. It was used extensively by author Ford Madox Ford. A flashb where she's helped to her feet by Edward Rochester, one of the characters from the novel. In this world, however, public opinion is divided between those who enjoy Jane Eyre as it is (the Brontë Society) and those who want to see it with a happier ending (almost everyone else).

Next journeys to the English countryside and meets her uncle Mycroft (whose name most likely comes from Sherlock HolmesSherlock Holmes is a fictional detective of the late 19th and early 20th century, created by British author and physician Arthur Conan Doyle. He is famous for his prowess at using logic and careful observation to solve cases. Holmes was said to have lived' brother) and aunt Polly. Mycroft is an inventor who's developed bookworms that eat the words of books and the Prose Portal, a device that allows people to step into the pages of any work of literature. She also renews an acquaintance with Landen Parke-Laine, a officer she used to work with, also a Crimean War veteran, and her former fiancé.

On call to the ploice bureau in SwindonSwindon is a town of Wiltshire, England, located in the South West of the UK (between London and Bristol). Easily accessible from junctions 15 and 16 of the M4 motorway, or by rail (Swindon Station). Swindon has a population of 180,000 (and rising). It is, Next and Parke-Laine learn that Hades has kidnapped Mycroft, Polly, and the Prose Portal in order to blackmailBlackmail is threatening to reveal substantially true information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a monetary demand is met. This information is usually of an embarrassing or damaging nature. As the information is substa the people of Britain by changing their favorite novels. He removes Mr. Quaverly, a minor character in DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens ( February 7, 1812 June 9, 1870), pen-name " Boz", was an English novelist of the Victorian era. The popularity of his books during his lifetime and to the present is demonstrated by the fact that none of his novels has ever go' Martin ChuzzlewitMartin Chuzzlewit is a novel by Charles Dickens, considered the last of his picaresque novels, which was written and serialized in 1843- 1844. Like nearly all of Dickens' novels, Martin Chuzzlewit was released to the public in monthly installments. Sales, from the original manuscript of the novel with the Portal and kills him -- altering the text of every copy of the novel -- when his demands are not met.

Next, Parke-Laine, and a Goliath Corporation operative named Jack trace Hades to Wales. Next follows Hades into the original text of Jane Eyre from which he's just kidnapped the title character. She meets up again with Rochester, who's perfectly aware that he's a character in a book, but who remembers meeting the SpecOps-27 agent before. Next had her uncle Mycroft close the Portal behind her until she said certain words which would be reflected in the revised text. But this becomes a catch-22For other uses of this term, see Catch 22. Catch-22 is a 1961 novel by Joseph Heller about the madness of war. The phrase catch-22 has come into common use to mean a cyclical conundrum, based on its meaning in the book as described below. The novel follow, since Jane Eyre is a fictional autobiographyFor the album by Ashlee Simpson, see Autobiography (album In a sense, autobiography is a form of biography, the writing of a life story. The difference, of course, is point of view: an autobiography is from the viewpoint of its subject. Biographers genera -- that is, the reader can only hear and see what Jane does. Even after Jane is returned to the novel, Next can't reveal herself without changing the story.

She persuades Rochester to do what he'd been inclined to do anyway, pursue Jane and ask her to marry him. When Rochester succeeds and Hades disguised as Rochester fails to get the code words from Next, Next pursues Hades in the pouring rain, and he dies impaled during a rooftop chase. Upon returning to her own world, Thursday Next uses the Prose Portal to release her aunt Polly from a Wordsworth poem and imprison Jack, who'd been collaborating with Hades to abduct a new plasma rifle for use in the Crimean War, in a reprint of Poe's poem " The Raven".

Next and Parke-Laine agree to marry each other after his planned wedding is interrupted by "the existence of an impediment", just like Jane and Rochester's originally was. The newlyweds are greeted by Thursday's father, a SpecOps-1 ChronoGuard who's part of the police force that makes sure history is right. After dispensing some fatherly advice, he disappears. England and Russia now seek to end the War (because the new rifles England did have don't work!), and the English public is overjoyed with the new ending to Jane Eyre, in which she and Edward Rochester are married with children.