Mass Market Paperback, 1024 pages
English language
Published July 31, 2006 by Tor Books.
4 stars
(2 reviews)
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.
Subjects
- Literary
- Science Fiction And Fantasy
- Fiction
- Fiction - Fantasy
- Fantasy
- Fantasy - Historical
- Fiction / Fantasy / Historical
- Fantasy - General
- Historical - General
- Humorous