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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

By: Susanna Clarke
Narrated by: Neil Gaiman, Richard Armitage, V.E. Schwab
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About this listen

Bloomsbury presents Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, read by Richard Armitage with Neil Gaiman and an introduction by V E Schwab.

The 20th anniversary edition of the fantasy classic.

‘The book I wish I'd written’ R F Kuang
‘Susanna Clarke writes with an intelligence and beauty that seems at times miraculous’ Katherine Rundell

1806. England is beleaguered by the long war, and centuries have passed since magicians faded from view. But one remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell. Proceeding to London, he raises a woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French.

Yet the cautious Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician. Young, handsome and daring, Jonathan Strange is his very antithesis. So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men – which overwhelms that between England and France. And soon their own secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine…

'Like Hilary Mantel, Clarke has made the very notion of genre seem quaint' Guardian

©2024 Susanna Clarke (P)2024 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Fantasy Genre Fiction Historical Magical Realism Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-Ins Victorian England Funny Magic Users

Critic reviews

'Clarke creates a world beyond our wildest imagination that also tells us something profound about what it is to be human' (BERNARDINE EVARISTO)

'What a world Susanna Clarke conjures into being' (DAVID MITCHELL)

'A miraculous and luminous feat of storytelling' (MADELINE MILLER)

'Purely joyful reading' (NAOMI ALDERMAN)

'Admirably inventive, frequently delightful' (MICHEL FABER)
All stars
Most relevant
I really enjoyed this book and particularly this book as an audiobook. The narration is great shifting between the main narrator whose performance is great and the narrator of the footnotes adds a scholarly flourish that compliments beautifully with the storytelling. Each chapter is essentially a compelling and short story, each time expanding the characters and their flaws while carefully pushing the narrative towards its climax - all against the backdrop of incredible invented histories and folklore of the Raven king and the lands of the fairies set alongside English and European history in the time of Napoleon reimagined with the presence of magic. Susanna Clarke has accomplished a feat of combining her extraordinary imagination with storytelling grounded in a reality that you actually believe - a brilliant book

Great audiobook

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Great story and beautiful writing that never lost the overall plot.I thought the narrator was awesome. Finished the book in a week, I’ll miss it.

I loved the writing style.

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To say that Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a commitment would be an understatement — it’s an 850-page odyssey that doubles as both literary workout and transportive escape. For a month I lugged this tome around like a kettlebell, and somehow, despite the weight (literal and figurative), I find myself in awe.

Susanna Clarke’s writing is, simply put, extraordinary. Nobody writes quite like her — her prose is meticulous, sly, and quietly dazzling. She doesn’t just create a world; she conjures it with such precision and strangeness that it feels both magical and deeply real. There’s a unique pleasure in the way she dances with frustration and dissatisfaction — drawing things out, withholding resolution, making you yearn — and yet, it’s satisfying in a way that’s hard to articulate. You just have to read it to understand.

The real marvel of this book, for me, lies in how Clarke weaves magic into history and culture, making enchantment feel like a plausible part of 19th-century England. And the fairies — eerie, beguiling, terrifying — are unlike any I’ve encountered elsewhere in fiction. Her world-building is implacable in the best sense: relentless, intricate, believable.

But no masterpiece is without its cracks. It is long. Long-winded, even. There are sections that could have been tightened, trimmed, or reimagined without losing the novel’s soul. And while Clarke’s portrayal of women captures the period’s social constraints with fidelity, it doesn’t always give them the same emotional depth or narrative weight she affords her male protagonists — a missed opportunity in an otherwise richly peopled world.

Still, if you can commit, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a rare and remarkable feat of imagination. It makes you believe — not just in magic, but in the power of language, of atmosphere, of patient, spellbinding storytelling.

Then the world sang to me 4,5

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just loved the whole thing. History, magic and bickering. good fun and engaging, totally bought into the characters and loved the narration.

Loved this

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Written in 19th century style as natural as Austen or O’Brian and concerning matters reminiscent of Alan Garner, Charles de Lint, and Ursula Le Guin. Quite unique.

Very good and very strange

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