Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow), a brilliant English academic, is researching the life and work of poet Christabel La Motte. Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart) is an American scholar in London to study Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northam), now best-known for a collection of poems dedicated to his wife. When Maud and Roland discover a cache of love letters that appear to be from Ash to La Motte, they follow a trail of clues across England, echoing the journey of the couple over a century earlier.