Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was the publishing sensation of 2004-2005. A New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, it has sold over 111,000 copies in hardback and over 350,000 copies in the UK. Film rights have been optioned by the producers of Lord of the Rings. Returns to the world of Strange and Norrell and is a must-have for all fans of the novel. Beautifully designed, this will be the perfect Christmas present.
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 and the Guardian First Book Award and the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award. It also won the Hugo Award and the World Fantasy Award in 2005. Susanna Clarke lives in Cambridge.
Like Clarke's first novel, the bestselling Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, these eight stories (seven previously published) are set in an England where magic is a serious but sometimes neglected field of study. The first story sees the erudite Strange tangling with country witches. Others show Austenesque concern with love and its outcomes ("Did you not hear me ask you to marry me?"), often involving fairies. In "The Duke of Wellington Misplaces His Horse," the duke visits Faerie, a kingdom located on the other side of the wall in the village of Wall (a location Clarke borrows from Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess), and meets a woman whose needlework affects the future. In the footnoted "Tom Brightwind or How the Fairy Bridge...," a "monumental" stone bridge is built in one afternoon. Clarke humorously revisits Rumplestiltzkin in "On Lickerish Hill," in which it is revealed that "Irishmen have tailes neare a quarter of a yard longe." Clarke may have trouble reaching a new audience in short form, as the stories provide less opportunity to get lost in fantastical material, but the author's many fans will be glad to have these stories in one volume. Illus. by Charles Vess not seen by PW. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
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