Longlisted for the Man/Booker Prize for Fiction 2004 Film rights have been acquired by the studio behind The Lord of the Rings trilogy The year's most talked about debut is sure to become the year's biggest novel in paperback
Susanna Clarke's debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was first published in more than 34 countries and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian First Book Award. It won British Book Awards Newcomer of the Year, the Hugo Award and the World Fantasy Award in 2005. The Ladies of Grace Adieu, a collection of short stories, some set in the world of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, was published by Bloomsbury in 2006. Her second novel, Piranesi, published in 2020 and was an immediate Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller, and was shortlisted for the Women's Prize. She lives in Derbyshire.
Unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in
the last seventy years
*NEIL GAIMAN*
With all of the whimsy, spark and imagination of Harry Potter and
the dry, well-observed wit of Neil Gaiman, Susanna Clarke perfectly
conveys all that can be brilliant about British literature and
manages to be refreshingly different from either
*GUARDIAN*
A highly original and compelling work
*SUNDAY TIMES*
Many books are to be read, some are to be studied, and a few are
meant to be lived in for weeks. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is of
this last kind
*WASHINGTON POST*
Full of epic sweep and intimate human drama … An imaginative
treat
*DAILY TELEGRAPH*
Ravishing ... superb ... Combines the dark mythology of fantasy
with the delicious social comedy of Jane Austen into a masterpiece
of the genre that rivals Tolkien
*TIME*
Clarke's imagination is prodigious, her pacing is masterly and she
knows how to employ dry humour in the service of majesty … Clarke's
giddiness comes from finding a way at once to enter the company of
her literary heroes, to pay them homage and to add to the
literature, to slot this big fat book into our own libraries of
spells. In this fantasy, the master that magic serves is reverence
for writing
*NEW YORK TIMES*
An elegant and witty historical fantasy which deserves to be judged
on its own (considerable) merit
*SUNDAY TELEGRAPH*
It is packed with neat, deft touches; peopled with an intriguing
and varied supporting cast; linguistically and socially utterly
authentic in its evocation of its idiosyncratic version of its
chosen era; movingly redolent of the author's affection for both
her protagonists; and builds to a resolution that satisfies both
logically and poetically
*INDEPENDENT*
A sprawling saga about 19th-century frenemy magicians who revive
the art of “practical magic” after years of its being merely an
academic pursuit … It’s also a book wherein storytelling helps make
the meaning: Clarke’s pastiche of period styles accentuates her
commentary on English identity, and hundreds of footnotes chronicle
the history of magic. It’s the novel Hogwarts-lit nerds read during
their postmodern Pynchon phase
*ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY*
Dazzling, witty and gleefully entertaining … A triumph … this is an
energetic, engaging and inventive tale that simply kidnaps the
lucky reader to participate in a rare experience
*IRISH TIMES*
It is, as benefits a novel about two rival magicians,
spellbinding…This is masterful, brilliantly paced
storytelling…prodigiously imagined, elegantly witty, superbly
crafted
*SCOTSMAN*
Unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in
the last seventy years -- NEIL GAIMAN
With all of the whimsy, spark and imagination of Harry Potter and
the dry, well-observed wit of Neil Gaiman, Susanna Clarke perfectly
conveys all that can be brilliant about British literature and
manages to be refreshingly different from either * GUARDIAN *
A highly original and compelling work * SUNDAY TIMES *
Many books are to be read, some are to be studied, and a few are
meant to be lived in for weeks. Jonathan Strange & Mr
Norrell is of this last kind * WASHINGTON POST *
Full of epic sweep and intimate human drama ... An imaginative
treat * DAILY TELEGRAPH *
Ravishing ... superb ... Combines the dark mythology of fantasy
with the delicious social comedy of Jane Austen into a masterpiece
of the genre that rivals Tolkien * TIME *
Clarke's imagination is prodigious, her pacing is masterly and she
knows how to employ dry humour in the service of majesty ...
Clarke's giddiness comes from finding a way at once to enter the
company of her literary heroes, to pay them homage and to add to
the literature, to slot this big fat book into our own libraries of
spells. In this fantasy, the master that magic serves is reverence
for writing * NEW YORK TIMES *
An elegant and witty historical fantasy which deserves to be judged
on its own (considerable) merit * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *
It is packed with neat, deft touches; peopled with an intriguing
and varied supporting cast; linguistically and socially utterly
authentic in its evocation of its idiosyncratic version of its
chosen era; movingly redolent of the author's affection for both
her protagonists; and builds to a resolution that satisfies both
logically and poetically * INDEPENDENT *
A sprawling saga about 19th-century frenemy magicians who revive
the art of "practical magic" after years of its being merely an
academic pursuit ... It's also a book wherein storytelling helps
make the meaning: Clarke's pastiche of period styles accentuates
her commentary on English identity, and hundreds of footnotes
chronicle the history of magic. It's the novel Hogwarts-lit nerds
read during their postmodern Pynchon phase * ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
*
Dazzling, witty and gleefully entertaining ... A triumph ... this
is an energetic, engaging and inventive tale that simply kidnaps
the lucky reader to participate in a rare experience * IRISH TIMES
*
It is, as benefits a novel about two rival magicians,
spellbinding...This is masterful, brilliantly paced
storytelling...prodigiously imagined, elegantly witty, superbly
crafted * SCOTSMAN *
Adult/High School-This delightful first novel exerts a strong and seductive pull on readers who might otherwise balk at its length. Like Philip Pullman's work, it is dark, deep, and challenging. It compares dead-on with Jane Austen's novels, and YAs who have underappreciated her wit may find it delicious when applied to magicians. Clarke even tosses in a bit of Dickens and Hardy-with great characterization, subplots, and a sense of fate bearing down hard on us. At stake is the future of English magic, which has nearly dwindled to all theory by the early 1800s, after centuries of prominence. When the book opens, only the reclusive and jealous Gilbert Norrell is practicing. Enter Jonathan Strange, a natural who has never studied magic formally. Norrell resents, then adopts Strange as a pupil whose growth he insists on controlling until the two come to the impasse that nearly leads them to destroy one another. Strange champions the 12th century's "Raven King" as the greatest magician in English history and hopes to summon him from Faerie, an alternate world. Norrell is determined to erase both from English memory-to hide the fact that he himself made a bargain with a fairy that has cost three people their lives, though their hearts go on dismally beating. Expertly written and imagined, the book is a feast for fans of fantasy, historical novels, or simply fabulously engrossing reads.-Emily Lloyd, formerly at Rehoboth Beach Public Library, DE Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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