In this inventive and affecting novel, an octogenarian book collector named Mr. Mee discovers the Internet with life-changing results.

Told in turns from the point of view of the endearing, utterly guileless Mr. Mee, two eighteenth-century French philosophers, and a middle-aged university professor, Andrew Crumey's book concerns the creation and mysterious disappearance of Rosier's Encyclopedia, a potentially explosive text written more than 200 years ago that purportedly disproves the existence of the universe. When Mr. Mee comes across a reference to the Xanthics, an obsolete sect that maintained unorthodox beliefs about fire, his hunt for more information compels him to try locating a copy of the singular encyclopedia. Technologically ignorant, Mr. Mee is at last persuaded by his addled housekeeper to conduct a modern search for the book on the Internet. But instead of finding additional clues about Rosier's Encyclopedia, Mr. Mee stumbles upon an image of a naked woman reading from an intriguing text....

Alternating among the three stories, Andrew Crumey takes us closer to the truth about Rosier's Encyclopedia and the secrets it contains. At times funny, often thought-provoking, and utterly engaging, Mr. Mee is Crumey's most rewarding novel to date.