Product Description

Faerie is never as far away as you think. Sometimes you find you have crossed an invisible line and must cope, as best you can, with petulant princesses, vengeful owls, ladies who pass their time embroidering terrible fates or with endless paths in deep, dark woods and houses that never appear the same way twice. The heroines and heroes bedevilled by such problems in these fairy tales include a conceited Regency clergyman, an eighteenth-century Jewish doctor and Mary, Queen of Scots, as well as two characters from "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: Strange himself and the Raven King".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6184 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
'An unholy alliance of Austen and Angela Carter' Daily Mail 'These tales read as if Jane Austen had rewritten the Brothers Grimm wonderful' Spectator 'Witty rejoinders and genteel manners to contrast nicely with the darker tones of hauntings, shape-changing and black magic Clarke is a natural storyteller' Sunday Telegraph 'It is the poise and lightness of Clarke's prose that draws the reader in' Daily Telegraph

About the Author
Susanna Clarke is the author of the international bestseller Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It was published in over thirty countries, shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award, the Guardian First Book Award and the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award. It won the Hugo Award and the World Fantasy Award in 2005. Susanna Clarke lives in Cambridge.

Customer Reviews

Gorgeous
Gorgeous. Beautifully written, delectably malign English fairytales. It's as if Jane Austen met Harry Potter on a lonely path in a dark wood and beat him with a stick until he lost his mind.

A delightful collection
Susanna Clarke is clearly a gifted storyteller, I immensely enjoyed 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell' and though this is completely different (a collection of short stories instead of a massive novel), the tone, style, subject matter and overall atmosphere is very much the same. As in 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell' Susanna Clarke succeeds in interweaving fact and fiction in such a manner that it all comes across as eminently true and believable.

Perfect bed-time stories for adults!

The Ladies of Grace Adieu, by Miss Susanna Clarke - a Critickal Review
I have had cause to speak of Miss Clarke's writings before, in connexion with her work Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and therein the chief critickism I had to make was as to the length of that novel, which I judged to be some two hundred pages (out of eight hundred) too long. No such cavil attends the remarks I wish to make of this present collection, which consists of a number of shorter tales, set within the same fantastickal and fascinating other-England of the longer book. Each and all are nothing less than a delight from beginning to end. Miss Clarke has a remarkable facility for evoking the strange and alarming world of Faerie, and creates a truly enchanting atmosphere when writing of it and of the ways in which men and women can become entangled in it. As if that were not enough, she swims in the English language as a dolphin might swim in the Ocean, playing and leaping through its currents and tides with a sly smile on her face. To read stories at once so absorbing and so witty, and with such finely drawn characters, is a rare delight, and I for one can scarcely bear to wait for her promised sequel to her original novel, and learn more of her original and marvellous other-England, and of the men and women she has peopled it with - most especially that fascinating and enigmatic figure John Uskglass, the Raven King.

Addendum: I note that a moving picture is to be made of the adventures of Messrs Strange & Norrell. No good can come of this.