Major Coridon Gore, aged 42, a well-known novelist, lives quietly in Elm Cottage near the fictional village of Halliard in Hampshire, looked after by his devoted housekeeper Florence Davey.

Unknown to Gore, his godfather has left him the sum of £10,000 in his will provided that he is found to be 'up and dressed' when his executors call at exactly half past nine.

Two days before their intended wedding, while Gore is staying in London, the elm is brought down by an overnight storm, a disaster that the family fear will affect his fragile mind.

On the book's publication, John Metcalf of The Sunday Times opined that “Mr Dornford Yates’s fantasy life is rich enough to make millionaires superfluous”.

He called his middle-aged author-hero "a very parfait gentil survivor from the world of Berry & Co." and wished "[g]ood luck to him and all wandering coelacanths".

He noted that several plot devices had been used before, including the wood-magic of a favourite elm, the immobilised officer with a head wound that renders him amnesiac, and jactitation of marriage by a respectable young woman for excellent reasons.

[6] Writing in 2015, Kate Macdonald called the novel "a triumphant return to [Yates'] playful and witty style of the 1920s, an emotionally taut comedy of recovery from wartime brain damage, set in an English Arcadia".