The book‘s opening scene portrays the protagonist, John Hope, awakening from a sleep of 193 years. Hope had been a prominent mid-twentieth-century scientist, who had developed new power sources that enabled air travel and, eventually, space exploration. In the year 1950, Hope had taken a “sleeping draught” that put him into a long suspended animation, as part of a planned experiment. When he wakes in the year 2143, he is met by Alfred and Edith Weir, descendants of John Malcolm Weir, the chemist who had prepared the sleeping draft Hope had taken in 1950.

The original edition of The Great Romance is one of the rarest books extant, with single copies of Parts 1 and 2 existing in New Zealand libraries. After a century of neglect, the book has been reprinted by editor Dominic Alessio, first in Science Fiction Studies in 1993 (Part 1) and then in a separate volume in 2008 (Parts 1 and 2).[9] (A third part of the story is thought to have existed, but no copy has yet been found.) The two extant volumes were reprinted in 2008, along with commentary by Dominic Alessio on the influence the writing likely had on Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward.

Considerable detective work has been applied to the question of the identity of the pseudonymous Inhabitant, although with no definite result.
Nevertheless, we lean toward the theory of one “Honnor of Ashburton,” because of an annotation to this effect in the only known original copies of the first two volumes of the work. Additionally, of the two title leafs found with Volume 1, the Ashburton page was printed on paper that matches that of the volume itself, and the volume contained advertisements for Ashburton businesses. This explains the photo we’ve attached to the story, which depicts the Ashburton Borough Council and Public Library, circa 1881. So far as we know, the clock tower has no connection to the lightning storm of 12 October 1955

In an underground city, Queen Phaestra uses a past-viewing machine of vague nature to show the destruction of Atlantis to two good-hearted men. But Atlantis itself is not visited, and there are no time phenomena apart from the viewing.

The Two Great Ones, Bill S. Preston, Esq., and Ted “Theodore” Logan, are the subjects of time-traveler Rufus’s mission, but instead they end up using his machine to write a history report to save their band, Wyld Stallyns.

Two Evil Robots from the future are out to destroy Bill & Ted and their babes. After all that, the Two Great Ones begin a journey that starts with Death and ends with Two Little Ones.