Published in 2004, it is an alternative history set in 19th-century England around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Its premise is that magic once existed in England and has returned with two men: Gilbert Norrell and Jonathan Strange. Centred on the relationship between these two men, the novel investigates the nature of "Englishness" and the boundaries between reason and unreason, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Dane, and Northern and Southern English cultural tropes/stereotypes. It has been described as a fantasy novel, an alternative history, and a historical novel. It inverts the Industrial Revolution conception of the North-South divide in England: in this book the North is romantic and magical, rather than rational and concrete.
Published in 2004, it is an alternative history set in 19th-century England around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Its premise is that magic once existed in England and has returned with two men: Gilbert Norrell and Jonathan Strange. Centred on the relationship between these two men, the novel investigates the nature of "Englishness" and the boundaries between reason and unreason, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Dane, and Northern and Southern English cultural tropes/stereotypes. It has been described as a fantasy novel, an alternative history, and a historical novel. It inverts the Industrial Revolution conception of the North-South divide in England: in this book the North is romantic and magical, rather than rational and concrete.
Add to your library to track progress and write reviews
Add to your library to track progress and write reviews
Find Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Susanna Clarke in PDF, EPUB, ebook, audiobook, print, or library editions.
Find Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Susanna Clarke in PDF, EPUB, ebook, audiobook, print, or library editions.
Strange & Norrell
Strange & Norrell
3 books in catalog
Alternative history and speculative fiction received a distinct contribution through the meticulous nineteenth-century pastiche and intricate magical lore of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. English author Susanna Clarke established her reputation with this expansive debut, blending historical realism with supernatural fiction.
Born on November 1, 1959, in Nottingham, England, Susanna Mary Clarke spent a nomadic childhood in towns across Northern England and Scotland. After graduating from St. Hilda's College, Oxford, she taught English as a foreign language abroad before returning to the United Kingdom to work as a cookery book editor in publishing. Her focus shifted toward novel writing after attending a fantasy-writing workshop in the early 1990s.
Clarke began writing Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell in 1993, stitching the narrative together from fragments in her spare time over a ten-year period while publishing short fiction in the same universe. Bloomsbury acquired the manuscript in 2003 and published it in 2004. The novel became an international bestseller, earning the Hugo Award, World Fantasy Award, and British Book Awards Newcomer of the Year in 2005, alongside a longlisting for the Man Booker Prize. She followed her debut with the short story collection The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories in 2006 and her 2020 novel Piranesi, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award.
Clarke's prose features high-literary pastiche, authentic nineteenth-century narrative framing, and elaborate faux-scholarly footnotes that establish an immersive historical reality. Her narratives regularly address academic rivalries, hidden supernatural realms, ancient fairy lore, solitude, and the tension between rigid institutional control and wild magic.
3 books in catalog
Alternative history and speculative fiction received a distinct contribution through the meticulous nineteenth-century pastiche and intricate magical lore of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. English author Susanna Clarke established her reputation with this expansive debut, blending historical realism with supernatural fiction.
Born on November 1, 1959, in Nottingham, England, Susanna Mary Clarke spent a nomadic childhood in towns across Northern England and Scotland. After graduating from St. Hilda's College, Oxford, she taught English as a foreign language abroad before returning to the United Kingdom to work as a cookery book editor in publishing. Her focus shifted toward novel writing after attending a fantasy-writing workshop in the early 1990s.
Clarke began writing Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell in 1993, stitching the narrative together from fragments in her spare time over a ten-year period while publishing short fiction in the same universe. Bloomsbury acquired the manuscript in 2003 and published it in 2004. The novel became an international bestseller, earning the Hugo Award, World Fantasy Award, and British Book Awards Newcomer of the Year in 2005, alongside a longlisting for the Man Booker Prize. She followed her debut with the short story collection The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories in 2006 and her 2020 novel Piranesi, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award.
Clarke's prose features high-literary pastiche, authentic nineteenth-century narrative framing, and elaborate faux-scholarly footnotes that establish an immersive historical reality. Her narratives regularly address academic rivalries, hidden supernatural realms, ancient fairy lore, solitude, and the tension between rigid institutional control and wild magic.
