Later research has revealed that the author was a London lawyer of the time named Stanislas de Rhodes.

[2] The story is narrated by a flea who tells the tale of a beautiful young girl named Bella, whose burgeoning sexuality is taken advantage of by her young lover Charlie, the local priest Father Ambrose and two of his colleagues in holy orders.

Father Ambrose, who had been hiding in the shrubs, surprises them afterward, scolding both for their behaviour and threatening to reveal what they have been doing to their guardians.

Ambrose instructs Bella into a way she may be absolved of her sins and blackmails her into sex with him, lest he tell her guardian what she was up to.

This leads to her uncle, who has long entertained lustful thoughts of his niece, attempting to force himself on Bella.

Monsieur Verbouc then bursts in and his wife realises that she has actually been making love to the randy priest.

The novel begins with the flea asserting that though he gets his living by blood sucking, he is "not the lowest of that universal fraternity".

[3] The flea further asserts that his intelligence and abilities of observation and communication are comparable to a human, and demurs from any explanation of the cause, adding that he is "in truth a most wonderful and exalted insect".

At the beginning of the story she is 14 and is described as being the admired one of all eyes and the desired one of all hearts – at any rate among the male sex[page needed].

The narrator says Ambrose's mind is dedicated to the pursuit of lust, and much of the novel's plot is due to his machinations.

Ultimately, Ambrose decides to expand the circle of debauchery by insisting Bella involve her friend the fair and innocent Julia Delmont.

After initially believing the advances are those of her husband, with whom she has not been intimate in many years, she feels Clement's enormous size, and leaps up.