Mr. Preemby is a dreamy, unassertive man until he is persuaded, in the months following his wife's death, that he is the incarnation of Sargon, the ancient king of Sumeria, returned to restore harmony in a disordered post-World War I world. He has long been attracted to esoterica and stories of ancient Atlantis and is persuaded that he has a special destiny by a séance at a boarding house in Royal Tunbridge Wells. Committed to a lunatic asylum, Mr. Preemby escapes and recovers some of his sanity, but dies prematurely in the winter of 1921–1922.
Chris Hossett, his wife, before her demise runs the Limpid Stream Laundry with Mr. Preemby's assistance. Her only daughter, Christina Alberta, is not Mr. Preemby's natural daughter, being the fruit of a brief liaison in the summer of 1899 in the seaside resort of Sheringham. Christina is a strong personality determined to live independently. She later discovers, to their mutual surprise, her true father, Wilfred Devizes, a psychologist, during her search for Mr. Preemby. Devizes serves as a mouthpiece for many of H.G. Wells's social ideas in the latter half of the novel, such as the notion that "True education [is] self-subordination to a greater life, to the social self."
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