Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

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Title Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Black version of the 1st hardcover edition.
Author Susanna Clarke
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Alternate history, Fantasy
Publisher Bloomsbury USA
Released September 8, 2004
Media type Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages 800 pp
ISBN ISBN 1-58234-416-7

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the award-winning debut novel by British writer Susanna Clarke. It was first published in America on 8 September 2004 and then in Britain on 20 September 2004 by Bloomsbury.

The book is set in an alternate 19th-century Britain, during the Napoleonic Wars. The story is based on the premise of magic returning to England, and the tumultuous relationship between two fictional magicians of the time. The story incorporates historical events and people into its fictional alternate reality. Historical figures encountered in the novel include the Duke of Wellington, Lord Byron and King George III. The novel, written in a pastiche of Jane Austen's literary style, uses quasi-archaic spelling for several words (such as shew, chuse, sopha, scissars, headach, and most noticeably, surprize).

The book is interspersed with hundreds of fictional footnotes which reference a number of fictional books including magical scholarship and biographies, and which provide a detailed backstory. Many pages of the book contain more footnote text than main body text. The book also features several illustrations by Portia Rosenberg and Charles Vess.

Contents

[edit] Major characters

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In addition to the historical personages, the reader is introduced to many characters, including:

  • Gilbert Norrell. A cautious, fussy scholar determined to bring magic back to England.
  • Jonathan Strange. Norrell's reckless and brilliant pupil, as well as England's greatest weapon against Napoleon.
  • John Segundus. A theoretical magician (meaning someone who studies magic but does not attempt to, or can not, make it work) who draws Norrell into the public's eye.
  • Mr. Honeyfoot. A theoretical magician of the York Society who befriends Segundus.
  • Dr. Foxcastle. A theoretical magician and head of the York Society.
  • John Childermass. Norrell's cunning and surly servant.
  • Christopher Drawlight. A fop of notoriously uncertain character who assists the scholarly Norrell in his bid to influence the politicians of London. Effeminate, unctuous but ultimately a petty criminal.
  • Henry Lascelles. Drawlight's companion and rival. Handsome, wealthy and cynical.
  • Vinculus. A ragged, drunken street-magician.
  • Arabella Strange. The wife of Jonathan Strange. Proud of her husband and tolerant of his idiosyncrasies.
  • Henry Woodhope. Arabella's brother, a clergyman.
  • Sir Walter Pole. A government minister who becomes a patron to Norrell and Strange.
  • Lady Emma Pole. Sir Walter's young wife, a beautiful young woman who is raised from the dead by the magic of Norrell.
  • Stephen Black. A black servant in the Pole household, of kingly countenance and carriage.
  • Flora Greysteel. A young English lady Strange meets while vacationing in Italy.
  • Doctor Lancelot Greysteel. Flora's father, a physician.
  • Louisa Greysteel. Lancelot's spinster sister.
  • The gentleman with thistle-down hair. The story's villain. The fairy king of "Lost-Hope", whose name is never given. Charming and gentlemanly, but also psychopathicaly cruel. He has almost no regard for anyone but himself and Stephen Black, to whom he takes a great liking.
  • John Uskglass, The Raven King. The shadowy twelfth-century founder of English magic and ruler of Northern England, from his seat in Newcastle, for more than 300 years. Scorned by Norrell, idolized by Strange and others.

[edit] Historical figures

Historical figures encountered in the book, either directly or in passing, include:

[edit] Awards and nominations

The novel has been awarded the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards for Best novel, both in 2005. It was also longlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize, nominated for the 2004 Whitbread First Novel Award and Guardian First Book Award.

The novel is also a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller. Time Magazine named it the best fiction novel of 2004[1].

Critical acclaim from fellow authors includes Neil Gaiman, who said the book was "unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventy years", and Charles Palliser, author of the similarly grand-scale, Victorian-set The Quincunx, who praised the book's depth of invented background; "I almost began to believe that there really was a tradition of "English magic" that I had not heard about."

[edit] Film

Christopher Hampton is adapting the book as a motion picture for New Line Cinema. Clarke has partnered with newly formed Cuba Pictures to produce the film.

[edit] Trivia

At one point in the book, reference is made to the Faerie kingdom of Pity-Me. This is in fact a real place in County Durham, North East England. Clarke was living in County Durham in 1992, when she started writing the novel.

There is a book called History and Practice of Magic by Lida A. Churchill and Paul Christian, which was published in 1994.

The book's cover features a blurb by Neil Gaiman, who is also responsible for Clarke's first publication - he introduced Patrick Nielsen Hayden to a short story set in the same universe, which was subsequently included in the anthology Starlight 1.

[edit] Related works

Susanna Clarke's short-story collection The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories features stories set in the world of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

[edit] External links

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