It’s a long audiobook, much longer than I’m used to and it took a few chapters to settle into the rhythm of the book. I happened to notice this when browsing my Audible library and had to listen to it. I got this ages ago and forgot I had it until I saw the TV series which I loved. (Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 23 September 2005, audiobook, 32 hrs and 30 mins, bought from Audible, narrated by Simon Prebble) Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. And their own obsessions and secret dabbling’s with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine. So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men which overwhelms that between England and France. Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very antithesis of Norrell. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange. Proceeding to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. But scholars of this glorious history discover that one remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell, whose displays of magic send a thrill through the country.

Centuries have passed since practical magicians faded into the nation’s past. “It will be an honour to open the doors to the House, and show its beauty to the world.The year is 1806. “But when I followed Piranesi into his watery Halls, I discovered Susanna’s wit, strangeness and sorrow made new and beautiful in ways I could not have imagined,” she said. “Susanna hinted she may be writing again after such a long hiatus, but I never really believed a fully imagined world, a perfectly constructed novel, would just be sitting there,” said Geller.Ĭlarke’s UK editor, Alexandra Pringle, said that she had thought that Jonathan Strange, which “appeared from the ether like an apparition … couldn’t be equalled”. Since then, the British author has published only a collection of short stories set in the same universe, The Ladies of Grace Adieu, telling interviewers that persistent ill-health had slowed her down.Ĭlarke’s agent, Jonny Geller, said that there are “a few moments in an agent’s life when something so unexpected and so wonderful pops up in your inbox, you can’t quite believe it”.

Published in 2004, it took the world by storm, selling more than 4m copies, winning prizes including the Hugo and World Fantasy awards, and was adapted by the BBC in 2015.

Running to more than 1,000 pages, it is set in an alternative version of 19th-century England, where magic has almost – but not quite – faded into the past. Clarke’s debut, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, took her more than 10 years to write.

Strange and norrell book