Samantha Whipple - a young American woman - is the last remaining descendent of the famous Brontë family, of 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Jane Eyre' fame. After losing her father, a brilliant author in his own right, Samantha travels to Oxford in search of a mysterious family inheritance, described to her in her father's will only as 'The Warnings of Experience'. While at Oxford, Samantha studies under Professor J. Timothy Orville III, a disarmingly handsome tutor who seems nothing but annoyed by her family heritage. With Orville as her tempestuous sidekick, Samantha sets out on a mission to piece together her family's history - which, it turns out, may also be literature's greatest buried secret.