Leonard Merrick (1864-1939) was a well-known English novelist who was popular with the likes of H. G. Wells, J. M. Barrie, G. K. Chesterton and William Dean Howells. Many of his stories have, over the years, been adapted to the screen. J. M. Barrie called Merrick the 'novelist's novelist'.

The Cafè of the Broken Heart is situated near the cemetery at Monmartre. When a widow calls by on the last day of the year and asks for a private room to grieve on the third anniversary of the death of her late husband, she is irritated to learn that the room is already occupied. She gets into conversation with the other mourner - a young artist - and discovers that he has a very strange story to tell.