This book is about an intelligent boy who is (unfornunately) named Rosamund. Teased by his fellow orphans at Madam Opera's Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls Rosamund is an outcast who dreams of leaving the Society for good. He gets his chance when a mysterious man named Mister Sebastipole offers him a job as a lamplighter (a person who goes out and lights the lamp that connect the highways). But Rosamund's world is fraught with danger and before long he finds himself in situations he could have never imagined with people that possess powers most of us can only dream of.