John Merrick had lived for more than twenty years imprisoned in a body that condemned him to a miserable life in the workhouse and to humiliation as a circus sideshow freak.

But beneath that tragic exterior, within that enormous and deformed head, thrived the soul of a poet, the heart of a dreamer, the longings of a man. Merrick was doomed to suffer forever—until the kind Dr. Treves gave him the first real home in the London Hospital and the town's most beautiful and esteemed actress made possible Merrick's cherished dream of human contact—and love.