Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
Jonathan Strange and Mr. NorrellSusanna Clarke
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Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (2001)

Susanna Clarke

Others: Mostly positive

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

ISBN:
9781526677181
Length:
1006 pages

Genres: fantasy, historical fiction

Lists: …

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Reviews8

Mixed

which I liked a lot for some parts but some parts of the book felt so slow and so anticlimactic I still don't really know how I feel about this book it let me down but at the same time I loved it so much