With their assets reduced to only two cabin boys and a barrel of old weevils, and with their many-jowelled bank manager breathing down their necks, the Pirate Captain and his crew must come up with a new way to make money very quickly. When they respond to an advertisement looking for 'adventure' in the Lake Geneva Gazette they encounter Percy Shelley, his winsome fianc e Mary (a lady who has cheekbones and skin in all the right places) and the dashing, luxuriant-haired and damsel-loving Lord Byron. Together they set sail for adventure, in search of the ultimate treasure, with only the Captain's mysterious belly tattoo and Charles's Babbage's brilliant mathematical brain to help them. But what will they find in the brooding castle of Ruthven in Romania? Are they really being pursued by a vile and frightening creature? Will the Pirate Captain's patented seduction techniques work on Mary? And is it possible that Byron might actually be a vampire? He certainly hopes so. The Pirates! in an Adventure with the Romantics is a tale of men and monsters, of sublime poetry and ridiculous fancy-dress costumes and a great great deal of piratical roaring.