A funny, fantastically entertaining debut novel, in the spirit of Wodehouse and Monty Python, about a famous poet who inadvertently sells his wife to the devil—then recruits a band of adventurers to rescue her. The novel centers on a group of adventurers on a dangerous quest, spiked with literary allusions and fantastic mechanisms. And the gauzy England of yesteryear is infused with magic (and delightful footnotes).