A dark comedy about the unfortunate life of a literary professor who suffers the loss of his wife and his lover all in one day. When Butley's estranged wife Anne announces her intention to marry a mutual friend, and his live-in lover and office mate Joey moves out to join another man, Butley is even more out of sorts than usual. And to top it off, his ill-respected colleague has just published her book on Byron—a task 20 years in the making.