Eojaeu, King of Ijaveo, leaves to his daughter, Eovaai, a precious jewel, upon the keeping of which her happiness depends. One day as she is gazing at it in the garden, it slips from its setting and is carried away by a little bird. Immediately the princess is forsaken by her quarreling subjects and abandoned by her suitors, save only the wicked Ochihatou, prime minister of the neighboring kingdom of Hypotofa, who has gained ascendancy over his sovereign by black magic, caused the promising young prince to be banished, and used his power to promote his ambitions and lusts. By infernal agencies he conveys Eovaai to the Hypotofan court, where he corrupts her mind and is about to triumph in her charms when he is summoned to quell a political disturbance. The princess, left languishing in a bower, is saved by her good Genius, who enables her to discern the true deformity of her betrayer and to escape to the castle of the good Alhahuza, and ultimately into the kingdom of Oozoff, where Ochihatou's magic has no power over her. During her stay there she listens to much political theorizing of a republican trend. Ochihatou succeeds in kidnapping her, and she is only saved from his loathed embraces by discovering one of his former mistresses in the form of a monkey whom she manages to change back into human shape and substitutes in her stead. While the statesman is employed as a lover, the populace led by Alhahuza storm the palace. Ochihatou discovers the trick that has been played upon him, hastily transforms his unlucky mistress into a rat, and conveys himself and Eovaai through the air into a kingdom near at hand, where he hopes to make head against the rebels. His pretensions are encouraged, but learning by his magic that the Hypotofan monarch has been freed from the power of his spells, he persuades the princess to return to Ijaveo with him in hopes of regaining her kingdom. He transforms her into a dove, himself into a vulture, and flies with her to a wood near the Ijavean court. There he restores their natural shapes and makes a base attack upon her honor. In the struggle she manages to break his wand, and he in a fury hangs her up by the hair and is about to scourge her to death, when she is rescued by a glorious young stranger. The wicked Ochihatou dashes his brains out against an oak. Her deliverer turns out to be the banished prince of Hypotofa, who restores to her the lost jewel, weds her, and prosperously governs their united realms. The fantastic story, however, was probably little calculated to sell the book. It was addressed to those who could read between the lines well enough to discern particular personages in the characters of the fiction, and especially a certain great man in the figure of the evil prime minister.