In a storybook version of Victorian London, Anna is an outspoken woman approaching thirty. After her first love dies, rumors about their relationship destroy her engagement, and her father casts her out. She works briefly for the widowed noblewoman Violet, whose desire to live and love again is revived by Anna’s stories, but Anna is repeatedly dismissed from later jobs for refusing to behave as society expects.

Through Violet’s grandson Brown, a rigid young lawyer, Anna finds work as a typist. She later discovers Lorelei Hill, a women’s literary society, and begins transforming her memories and fantasies into a serialized novel published in The Red Book. The magazine becomes widely popular despite being condemned as vulgar. Anna and Brown frequently clash over love, marriage, and her writing, but their arguments gradually develop into affection.

Influential critic Dick Johnson invites Anna to discuss a review but instead makes sexual advances. When she violently rejects him, he uses his influence over the press and judiciary to turn public opinion against The Red Book and have Anna and the Lorelei Hill writers prosecuted under the Publications Act.

Brown initially suggests that Anna plead mental illness, but she refuses because doing so would invalidate both her writing and the readers who found strength in it. He eventually changes his defense and calls ordinary readers connected to the court as witnesses. Their testimony demonstrates how Anna’s work has encouraged and comforted them, and judgment is postponed until the novel is completed, effectively freeing Anna to continue writing.

As new writers gather at Lorelei Hill to tell their own stories, Anna is recognized as an author and begins a new relationship with Brown without surrendering her independence or voice.