Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Several of the gentlemen present said that there was no such thing as magic, not any more. Others maintained that magic had not grown rarer — it was still practised daily by fairies, who were disinclined to share it with Englishmen.
What Makes This Book Essential
Clarke spent ten years writing Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and every page shows the accumulation of that thought. The novel is set in an alternate England during the Napoleonic Wars, where magic was once practiced but has been lost. Mr Norrell, the first practical magician in centuries, is a hoarder of books and knowledge, terrified of sharing his power. Jonathan Strange, his impulsive student, wants magic to be wild and free.
The novel is narrated in a mock-19th-century style — complete with extensive footnotes about the history of English magic — that makes it feel like a genuine historical discovery. The footnotes are not optional reading; they contain some of Clarke's best prose. The supernatural threat, when it arrives, is one of the most original faeries in modern fiction: not whimsical, but genuinely alien.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell won the Hugo Award and World Fantasy Award in 2005. Clarke's second novel, Piranesi (2020), is shorter and equally brilliant — many readers start there and return to this one.
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