The adventures of Desperaux Tilling, a small mouse of unusual talents, the princess that he loves, the servant girl who longs to be a princess, and a devious rat determined to bring them all to ruin.
Relates the adventures of Professor William Waterman Sherman, a disillusioned schoolteacher, who in 1883 sets off in a giant balloon across the Pacific, survives the volcanic eruption of Krakatoa, and is eventually picked up in the Atlantic.