The woman is Madelene, an alcoholic married to an ambitious zoologist named Burden. The ape is Erasmus, intended by Burden to be the means by which his dream can be fulfilled of directing London Zoo and turning it into the most advanced zoological complex in the world. However, Erasmus, a brand new species of thinking and talking ape, has his own ideas. He seduces the stifled Madelene and eventually woman and ape elope to a forest where Nature has reasserted itself. Here the two lovers discover new truths about one another and seem to have entered a new Eden until the realities of civilization and its restraints once more obtrude. H eg’s unconventional and inventive morality tale is, at one level, a witty mix of fantasy and fable. At another, it is an invitation to all of us to examine the values of the urban civilization in which we live.