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Susanna Clarke’s first novel is
an utterly compelling epic tale of nineteenth-century England
and the two very different magicians who, as teacher and
pupil and then as rivals, emerge to change its history.
English magicians were once the wonder of the known world,
with fairy servants at their beck and call; they could command
winds, mountains, and woods. But by the early 1800s they
have long since lost the ability to perform magic. They can
only write long, dull papers about it, while fairy servants
are nothing but a fading memory.
But at Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire, the rich, reclusive Mr.
Norrell has assembled a wonderful library of lost and forgotten
books from England’s magical past and regained some
of the powers of England’s magicians. He goes to London
and raises a beautiful young woman from the dead. Soon he
is lending his help to the government in the war against
Napoleon Buonaparte, creating ghostly fleets of rain-ships
to confuse and alarm the French.
All goes well until a rival magician appears. Jonathan Strange
is handsome, charming, and talkative—the very opposite
of Mr Norrell. Strange thinks nothing of enduring the rigors
of campaigning with Wellington’s army and doing magic
on battlefields. Astonished to find another practicing magician,
Mr. Norrell accepts Strange as a pupil. But it soon becomes
clear that their ideas of what English magic ought to be
are very different. For Mr. Norrell, their power is something
to be cautiously controlled, while Jonathan Strange will
always be attracted to the wildest, most perilous forms of
magic. He becomes fascinated by the ancient, shadowy figure
of the Raven King, a child taken by fairies who became king
of both England and Faerie, and the most legendary magician
of all. Eventually Strange’s heedless pursuit of long-forgotten
magic threatens to destroy not only his partnership with
Norrell, but everything that he holds dear.
Sophisticated, witty, and ingeniously convincing, Susanna
Clarke’s magisterial novel weaves magic into a flawlessly
detailed vision of historical England. She has created a
world so thoroughly enchanting that eight hundred pages leave
readers longing for more.
Susanna Clarke lives in Cambridge, England. This is her
first book.
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