Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

The international bestseller, finally in paperback! Timemagazine's #1 book of the year 11 weeks and counting on theNew York Timesbestseller list Shortlisted for theGuardianFirst Book Award Longlisted for the Booker prize A Book Sense pick PeopleTop Ten Books of the year Salon.com Top Ten of 2004 New York TimesNotable Books of the Year Christian Science MonitorBest Fiction 2004 Nancy Pearl's Top 12 Books of 2004 Washington PostBook WorldBest of 2004 San Francisco ChronicleBest Books of 2004 Chicago TribuneBest of 2004 Seattle Times25 Best Books of 2004 Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionTop 12 Books of 2004 Village Voice"Top Shelf" Raleigh News & ObserverBest of 2004 Rocky Mountain Newscritics' favorites of 2004Kansas City Star100 Noteworthy Books of 2004 Fort Worth Star-Telegram10 Best Books of 2004 Hartford CourantBest Books of 2004 Susanna Clarke's brilliant first novel is an utterly compelling epic tale of nineteenth-century England and the two very different magicians who, as teacher and pupil and then as rivals, emerge to change its history. Sold in 21 languages, with a major motion picture from New Line on the way,Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrellis a tour de force that has captured the imagination of readers worldwide. Susanna Clarkewas born in Nottingham, England, in 1959, the eldest daughter of a Methodist minister. She was educated at St Hilda's College, Oxford, and has worked in various areas of nonfiction publishing. She has published a number of short stories and novellas in American anthologies, includingMr Simonelli, or the Fairy Widower, which was shortlisted for a World Fantasy Award in 2001. Susanna lives in Cambridge with her partner, the novelist and reviewer Colin Greenland. New York TimesNotable Books of the Year AChicago TribuneBest Book of 2004 InJonathan Strange & Mr. Norrellwe find a debut novel marked by wonderfully vivid details, enchanting characters, and fantastic yet familiar situtaions--a grand and engrossing saga that reads, asSalon.comhas noted, much like "when Harry Potter met Jane Austen." English magicians were once the wonder of the known world, with fairy servants at their beck and call; they could command winds, mountains, and woods. But by the early 1800s they have long since lost the ability to perform magic. They can only write long, dull papers about it, while the fairy servants are nothing but a fading memory. But at Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire, the rich, reclusive Mr. Norrell has assembled a wonderful library of lost and forgotten books from England's magical past and regained some of the powers of England's magicians. He goes to London and raises a beautiful young woman from the dead. Soon he is lending his help to the government in the war against Napoleon Bonaparte, creating ghostly fleets of rain-ships to confuse and alarm the French. All goes well until a rival magician appears. Jonathan Strange is handsome, charming, and talkative--the very opposite of Mr. Norrell. Strange thinks nothing of enduring the rigors of campaigning with Wellington's army and doing magic on battlefields. Astonished to find another practicing magician, Norrell accepts Strange as a pupil. But it