To ingratiate himself, Mr Norrell attempts to recall Sir Walter's fiancée, Emma Wintertowne, from the dead. He enters society with the help of two gentlemen about town, the superficial Christopher Drawlight and the shrewd Henry Lascelles, and meets a Cabinet Minister, Sir Walter Pole. Segundus's article generates interest in Mr Norrell, who moves to London to revive practical English magic. John Childermass, Mr Norrell's servant, convinces a member of the group, John Segundus, to write about the event for the London newspapers.

Norrell proves his skill as a magician by making the statues in York Cathedral speak, thereafter compelling the society to disband. The group is stunned to learn of a 'practical magician', Mr Gilbert Norrell. The novel opens in 1806 in northern England with The Learned Society of York Magicians, whose members are 'theoretical magicians' who study magical texts and history, after the decline of magic in England several hundred years earlier. He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could bear to listen to him. It was longlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize and won the 2005 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

The novel was well received by critics and reached number three on the New York Times best-seller list. Bloomsbury were so sure of its success that they printed 250,000 hardcover copies. It was accepted by Bloomsbury and published in September 2004, with illustrations by Portia Rosenberg.

She supplements the text with almost 200 footnotes, outlining the backstory and an entire fictional corpus of magical scholarship.Ĭlarke began writing Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell in 1992 ten years later she submitted the manuscript for publication. Clarke describes the supernatural with careful detail. The novel's language is a pastiche of 19th-century writing styles, such as those of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. The narrative draws on various Romantic literary traditions, such as the comedy of manners, the Gothic tale, and the Byronic hero. 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.

It has been described as a fantasy novel, an alternative history, and a historical novel. 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. Its premise is that magic once existed in England and has returned with two men: Gilbert Norrell and Jonathan Strange. Published in 2004, it is an alternative history set in 19th-century England around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the debut novel by British writer Susanna Clarke.

Jonathan strange and mr norrell book