The action begins in April, 1809. The setting is Sidley Park, the Derbyshire, England, estate of the Coverly family. Thirteen-year-old Thomasina Coverly is studying with her tutor, the young Septimus Hodge, in a large room facing a garden. Thomasina is exceptionally intelligent for her age, and her current project is a search for proof of Fermat's last theorem, an algebraic conundrum that has perplexed mathematicians since the seventeenth century. Meanwhile, Septimus is reading "The Couch of Eros," a particularly horrible poem written by one of the manor's current guests, Ezra Chater.
Thomasina has an insatiable curiosity, and her main interest for the day, other than her math lesson, is in a phrase she overheard: "carnal embrace." Septimus comically tries to spare his young pupil the adult explanation and convince her that.....
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