Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1675305 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 800 pages

Amazon.co.uk
This book has been printed with two different dust jackets--one black, one white. Amazon.co.uk is unable to accept requests for a specific cover. The various covers will be assigned to orders at random.

Any book touted as the ‘adult Harry Potter’ runs the risk of attracting critical parries from swords of the double-edged variety. If this wasn’t enough, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell--the debut novel from Susanna Clarke--also invites comparisons with Jane Austen. Set in the early nineteenth-century, the action moves from genteel drawing rooms—albeit where a mischievous Faerie king sips tea with the wife of a very human government minister, to the bloody battleground of Waterloo, where giant hands of earth drag men to their doom. The juxtaposition of perfectly realised magical worlds and the everyday one with which JK Rowling and Philip Pullman so successfully captured our imaginations and the social comedy of Austen and Thackeray can easily be recognised. But less easy to pastiche is the ability of these writers to induce sheer narrative pleasure, and it is Clarke’s great achievement that she succeeds with this hugely enjoyable read.

Gilbert Norrell is determined to single-handedly rehabilitate his sanitised and patriotic version of English magic, which has suffered a post-Enlightenment neglect after a richly dark history. He ruthlessly secures his place as England’s only magician in two marvellously drawn feats. First, he brings the statutes of York Cathedral to life and then, to facilitate his entry into London society, he brings a young bride-to-be back from the dead--a feat with terrible consequences. However, another more naturally gifted magician—Jonathan Strange—emerges to become his pupil and later his rival. Strange becomes increasingly obsessed with the Raven King—the medieval lord-magician of the North of England and pursues his desire to recruit a fairy servant to the edge of madness. Whilst the differing characters of Norrell and Strange give the book a central human conflict, it is the tension between the dual natures of civilised and wilder magic that lends it a metaphysical texture that shades the narrative with wonderful and troubling descriptions of ships made of rain, paths between mirrors and faerie roads leading out of England to a bleak yet dazzling realm. Fortunately, the precision of her storytelling never reigns in Clarke’s prodigious imagination.

Clarke’s broad canvas of characters—including Wellington, Napoleon and Bryon, locations and tones are masterfully realised. However, sometimes her own enchantment with them leads her to drop her pace, although even at almost 800 pages, this is a book to which you’ll muster up little resistance. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the perfect novel to take up residence in as the nights get longer. -- Fiona Buckland

Review
'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

The Scotsman
This is masterful, brilliantly paced storytelling... it is completely mesmerising

Customer Reviews

I'm with Neil Gaiman
This is truly a fantastic book. I can't praise it highly enough. The plot, characters, pacing and, above all, the back story, make this a brilliant novel and a fantastic début. And, being a Yorkshire lass myself, it was certainly gratifying to find a novel that doesn't rampantly stereotype all Northerners.
The story begins in 1806, when two theoretical magicians with the wonderfully Dickensian names of Segundus and Honeyfoot encounter the reclusive scholar, Mr Norrell. Their quest is to find out why magic, which was once so common in England, particularly in the North under the 300 year reign of the Raven King John Uskglass, is now a distant history to be studied by gentlemen like themselves. But they discover that, for all his bookish and condescending ways, Mr Norrell is in fact a practical magician, which he proves by bringing all the statues in York Minster/Cathedral to life. Having brought his powers to the attention of the public, he immediately sets of to London, where he plans to help in the war effort against Napoleon, and in the process resurrect English magic.
At first he is not taken seriously, and it soon becomes clear Norrell will go to any lengths to become the only magician in England. But when he encounters Jonathan Strange, another magician, he seems to wake up to new possibilities. He takes Strange on as a pupil. But the two men are too different for the partnership to last. Norrell is secretive and unfriendly, hoarding magical knowledge and desperately preserving his own prestige. Strange is charming and gregarious, and becomes a hero in the wars. What starts off as mild rivalry soon escalates into a feud, with far reaching consequences.
If you've see the size of this book, you'll understand it's a hard thing to summarize. At almost 800 pages it's not a coffee table book, it's a coffee table. But don't be put off. It's fast moving, brilliantly written, wryly amusing and full of nods to the ghosts of literature past. It's also quite beautiful, and I'm not just talking about the pretty cover. It's part Lord of the Rings, part Harry Potter, part The Crimson Petal And The White and part Jane Austen. I raced through it in 3 days, and am already halfway through my second reading. Apparently there's a sequel in the pipeline, and at the minute I'd gladly put back Harry Potter 6 by years to have that instead.

Simply magic
I have had this book on my shelf for ages but I allowed the hype to influence me (I just couldn't believe it was as good as people said) and, as such, I have only just got round to reading it.

When I started to read this book I made the mistake of trying to place it in a genre. Fortunately, I soon realised that to do so is impossible and I quickly gave up and allowed the story to flow all around me.

But, I suppose, for the sake of this review, I should try again: take a little bit of any of the better historical novels out there, a little bit of the magical realism of Rushdie, a little bit of the fantasy of Neil Gaiman, with a liberal dose of Austen's social humour and give it a very good shake and you get somewhere near to the genre of this book.

But, again, I am missing the point entirely; in writing this book Clarke has created her own genre and this book belongs in a class of her own. It is a stunning achievement of writing as a craft and art. It is alarming, disturbing, funny, moving, in short, wonderful, and needs to be experienced with no preconceptions or expectations. I only wish that I had read it earlier.

So, a book very much on its own, hey? Hmmm...I doubt that will last...I can see publishers up and down the country scouring the nation for the next Jonathan Strange. There is no point. I doubt they will find anything that quite matches this (but let's hope I am wrong).

Stunnig debut
I had the very good fortune to borrow a pre-publication proof copy of the book and was bowled over by it. The story is gripping, of mythical scope and beautifully written - I cannot recommend it strongly enough.

Mr Strange and Mr Norrell, the eponymous (anti?)heroes are the two great magicians of their age (the early 1800s). They are drawn together by common-talent, but driven apart by differing aims and personalities into a fearsome rivalry. Norrell is self-serving, vain and insecure; Strange is bold charismatic and iconoclastic. The book is set in an alternative version of the past, peopled with figures like Wellington, the wars in Spain and other late Georgian-era facts in a very heady and convincing mix. Through the actions of the two magicians England and the Kingdom of Faerie are brought into violent conflict. If this all sounds very fantasy and like a children's book - it's not. The writing is sophisticated, gritty and humorous. The characters are visceral and the tension and drama of the story masterfully handled. It is an immensely well-crafted book that heralds the arrival of a very original and imaginative literary writer.