The story is set in Prague in the 1940s, during the Nazi occupation and early communism, and follows a young man who alternately gets into trouble and has successes.

When the Emperor of Ethiopia comes to Czechoslovakia for a state visit, he dines at the hotel, and Dítě is awarded a special medal for his diligent service, an honor which he wears proudly many times throughout the novel.

Though he attempts to pass as Aryan himself, the other Germans treat him with condescension and disdain; he must get a dispensation from the doctor in order to be able to impregnate his wife, submitting to a humiliating physical exam in the process.

The fame and wealth he amasses fulfill the dreams of his youth, and yet his status as a Nazi collaborator leaves him alienated from Prague's other hoteliers.

After the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia, the hotel is nationalized, and Dítě is thrown into "millionaire's prison," in which the inmates live in high style and have access to all the luxuries they had on the outside.

After the prison is closed down, Dítě works a brief stint at a lumber mill before securing himself a job as a road repairer in the isolated mountains.

James Wood wrote in the London Review of Books in 2001: "I Served the King of England is a joyful, picaresque story, which begins with Baron Munchausen-like adventures, and ends in tears and solitude, a modulation typical of Hrabal's greatest work.

"[2] After the fall of communism, the Czech filmmaker Jiří Menzel attempted to make a film from I Served the King of England.

Menzel had in the past directed several films based on Hrabal's stories, such as Closely Watched Trains and Larks on a String.