Due to family bereavement and the subsequent remarriage of his mother, a boy is sent to an elite English boarding school. Lady Flayskin, the headmistress, requires all her pupils, boys and girls, to dress as girls. As the subtitle suggests, figure training and deportment are cultivated through tight corsets, high-heeled boots, and kid gloves.
Discipline is enforced through the vigorous application of birch and whip. Whilst cross-dressing is a feature of this novel, the central chapters focus on the subjection of a haughty young aristocrat, Miss Virginia Malville.

"Stays and Gloves" is a classic Victorian erotic novel, published in 1909 by Lord Kidrodstock. It contains graphic sexual descriptions and themes. Its subtitle is: "Figure-Training and Deportment by Means of the Discipline of Tight Corsets, Narrow High-Heeled Boots, Clinging Kid Gloves, Combinations, etc..."