One of the great natural scientists of her age, Eleanor Glanville was a woman ahead of her time-the beautiful daughter of a seventeenth-century Puritan nobleman whose unconventional passions scandalized society. Her life was marked by two reckless preoccupations: a fascination with science-especially the study of butterflies-and a tempestuous love affair with the dashing soldier Richard Glanville that nearly cost her everything she held dear.