We’re thrilled to share the cover for the anniversary edition of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, which features a new introduction from V.E. Schwab, coming October 22 2024 from Bloomsbury Publishing. Additionally, Bloomsbury will be releasing a new, fully illustrated short story set in the Jonathan Strange universe called The Wood at Midwinter on the same day!
In the Hugo-award winning, epic New York Times Bestseller and basis for the BBC miniseries, two men change England’s history when they bring magic back into the world.
In the midst of the Napoleonic Wars in 1806, most people believe magic to have long since disappeared from England—until the reclusive Mr. Norrell reveals his powers and becomes an overnight celebrity.
Another practicing magician then emerges: the young and daring Jonathan Strange. He becomes Norrell’s pupil, and the two join forces in the war against France.
But Strange is increasingly drawn to the wild, most perilous forms of magic, and he soon risks sacrificing his partnership with Norrell and everything else he holds dear.
Susanna Clarke’s brilliant first novel is an utterly compelling epic tale of nineteenth-century England and the two magicians who, first as teacher and pupil and then as rivals, emerge to change its history.
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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Susanna Clarke is the author of Piranesi, which won the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Hugo Award–winning Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories. She lives in England.
Is this worth revisiting? I bought it originally when it was getting lots of buzz and made it half way through before giving up. I was promised magic, I was waiting for magic but I didn’t find any magic (at least thats what I remember all these years later.) Since then I’ve read more classic literature, I’ve read Piranesi and loved it. I liked Babel by R. F. Kuang. Is this worth giving another shot?
It’s well worth revisiting. The prose is lovely, the footnotes should delight any book nerd, and the big climax knits everything together in the most satisfying way one could want. And you don’t have to wait long for magic (the first showy magic appears in chapter 3), but it’s true that he first of the three parts is the least splashy—but it’s also the shortest!
My only caveat is that there are a lot (literally hundreds) of tiny errors in the original edition, especially when it comes to historical spellings (learnt and every one are more common, but learned and everyone creep in on the regular) and foreign words (gondoliere is misspelled every time it appears). But they’ve had 20 years to catch those, so fingers crossed this edition is the editorial perfection this wonderful story deserves!
Just got a copy of the Anniversary Edition, and it is total garbage. All the errors remain, and now they’re printed on cheaper paper. 100% of the effort went into the dust jacket. Super depressing.