Arthur Granger, the narrator and a failing novelist, is commissioned to write celebrity profiles in a suspicious journal. On a stroll he meets an otherworldly woman, who tells him she comes from a parallel universe where she’s involved in a conspiracy to take over the world. Arthur is drawn in by her charm and falls into the world of political machinations, which include a plot for Britain to colonize Greenland.

The Inheritors , published in 1901, is the first of three collaborations between Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford . The book’s concept and most of the writing is attributed to Ford. Conrad served mostly as editor; he himself was writing Lord Jim at the time.