Crampton Hodnet is a consummate farce—constructed, in recognizably "Pym" fashion, around a pair of unsuitable attachments. The first involves a young curate and Miss Morrow, who are both residents at Miss Doggett's home, Leamington Lodge. Their attempt to provide a plausibly innocent account of a late afternoon excursion into the woods outside Oxford gives rise to the fanciful creation of a nonexistent vicar and village—the Crampton Hodnet of the title. The second romance is that between a starry-eyed professor and his female student, who is continually falling into traps of her own devising.