Denis, a young writer and poet, travels to an English countryside manor to spend the summer alongside a cast of outlandish leisure class intellectuals. The younger guests of the manor grapple with navigating love and sex within a post-Victorian society. Older guests and inhabitants obsess over trivialities from their vast libraries, eager to give a show of their knowledge to each other. The novel uses these interactions to paint a scathing representation of their insecurities and world views.

Crome Yellow is Aldous Huxley’s first published novel. His inspiration for many of the characters came from his time spent at Garsington Manor, a haven for many writers and poets of the time.