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Format: Paperback
ISBN-10: 1596911530
ISBN-13: 9781596911536
Nov 2005
Publisher: Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA
1024 pages
Collectors
Language: English |
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* ML=ships from multiple locations, AE/AP/AA=ships from U.S. Military location.
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* ML=ships from multiple locations, AE/AP/AA=ships from U.S. Military location.
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Synopsis
Both the publisher and critics have attempted to pigeonhole this charming fantasy, winner of the 2005 Hugo Award for best novel and a New York Times Notable Book for 2004, as "Harry Potter for Adults." However, their only point of similarity is that both books feature British magicians. Set in an alternate early 19th-century England and written in the prose of that time, the book is constructed as a heavily footnoted academic work concerning the careers of two magicians who helped the British win the war against Napoleon. The plot and tone are a satiric mix of a scholarly tome, an old-fashioned fairy tale, and a comedy of manners. In this version of England, everyone knows that fairies exist and that magicians actively employed their craft during the Middle Ages. However, practical magic has currently fallen into disuse, and all the people claiming to be magicians are theoretical ones, writing about magic, but not actually casting any spells. Therefore, it's quite astonishing when Mr. Gilbert Norrell, a pedantic, book-hoarding recluse, enters London society as a fully practicing magician. Not long after, the dashing dilettante Jonathan Strange discovers an unexpected aptitude for magic and also arrives in London, to act both as pupil and rival to Mr. Norrell. The book contains several black-and-white illustrations, again in an early 19th-century style.
| Size | | Length: | 1024 pages | | Height: | 8.3 in | | Width: | 5.3 in | | Thickness: | 3.0 in | | Weight: | 32.8 oz |
Publisher's Notes
First Line: "Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic."
Industry Reviews
"Clarke's spectacular debut is something far richer than [Harry] Potter....[R]adiantly readable....An instant classic, one of the finest fantasies ever written." (starred review)
Kirkus (07/01/2004)
"...[E]xtraordinary...[M]esmerizing...[W]ill enchant readers of fantasy and literary fiction alike." (starred review)
Publishers Weekly (07/12/2004)
"...[A] first novel that ultimately deserves the hype its publisher is lavishing upon it....Susanna Clarke finds her own path...to the essence of fantasy....[T]he payoff is a very special pleasure."
Locus - Faren Miller (08/01/2004)
"With a cheery tone, Clarke welcomes herself into an exalted company of British writers--not only, some might argue, Dickens and Austen, but also the fantasy legends Kenneth Grahame and George MacDonald--as well as contemporary writers like Susan Cooper and Philip Pullman....Many charmed readers will feel, as I do, that Susanna Clarke has wasted neither her energies nor our many reading hours."
New York Times Book Review - Gregory Maguire (09/05/2004)
"Clarke's ability to construct a fully imagined world...is impressive."
New Yorker (09/13/2004)
"At its best and most uncluttered, this book delivers splendid and unpredictable surprises....[It generates] the basis for a brand new fantasy world, an intricate and fully imagined universe of bewitching tricks."
New York Times - Janet Maslin (09/17/2004)
"...[A] quite extraordinary novel....[I]t celebrates a rich secret history that might never have been, but that would have been way cooler than what we've got."
Locus - Gary K. Wolfe (09/01/2004)
"...[I]nhabits and transcends genre fantasy....There is a particular pleasure in reading a superior example of a genre which can be taken as a manifesto for what the genre should be."
Times Literary Supplement - Roz Kaveney (10/01/2004)
"[V]ery original....[T]he inspiration for her elegant, imperturbable wit is clearly several centuries of superb English historians and biographers, from Gibbon to Lytton Strachey. As for her wondrous, image-rich depictions of her heroes' spells...that's nothing less than pure sorcery."
Salon - Laura Miller (12/07/2004)
"[G]enuinely exciting....I enjoyed this....The illustrations by Portia Rosenberg...deserve an honourable mention, taking us back to those happy days when adult books were illustrated as well as children's."
Literary Review - Christopher Hart
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