A very special book indeed, magical in all its senses, which won the Hugo Award and the World Fantasy Award for best book. Slow to get into and long, it is written in the style of the period in which it is set, Regency, which I felt added to its charm. It’s about magicians, different strands of magic, highly imaginative with many layers and intricate sub-plots and, despite the dusty language, is totally compelling. A highly intelligent alternative history which I urge you to read and become totally hooked. ~ Sarah Broadhurst
SOON TO BE A MAJOR SEVEN-PART BBC TV SERIES. Two magicians shall appear in England. The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me ...
The year is 1806. England is beleaguered by the long war with Napoleon, and centuries have passed since practical magicians faded into the nation's past. But scholars of this glorious history discover that one remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell whose displays of magic send a thrill through the country. Proceeding to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange. Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very opposite of Norrell. So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men which overwhelms the one between England and France. And their own obsessions and secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine.
'Unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventy years. It's funny, moving, scary, otherworldly, practical and magical ... Closing Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell after 800 pages my only regret was that it wasn't twice the length' Neil Gaiman
'An elegant and witty historical fantasy which deserves to be judged on its own (considerable) merit' Sunday Telegraph
'Full of spells, bad weather, statues that talk, haunted ballrooms and sinister gentlemen with thistledown hair ... be enchanted!' Elle
'A nourishing, 19th-century-style novel that will warm readers through any number of dark and stormy nights ... Clarke makes her magical story ridiculously engrossing' Daily Telegraph
'This is, in both the precise and the colloquial sense, a fabulous book ... a highly original and compelling work' Sunday Times
Author
About Susanna Clarke
Susanna Clarke was born in Nottingham in 1959, the eldest daughter of a Methodist Minister. In 1990 she left London and went to Turin to teach English to stressed-out executives of the Fiat motor company. The following year she taught English in Bilbao.
She returned to England in 1992 and spent the rest of that year in County Durham, in a house that looked out over the North Sea. There she began working on her first novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, published by Bloomsbury in October 2004.
Susanna lives in Cambridge with her partner, the novelist and reviewer Colin Greenland.
