Encyclopedia of Psychology 1-8

In Susanna Clarke’s fabulous fantasy novel, two rival magicians’ secret dabblings with the dark arts cause more trouble than they could have imagined.The year is 1806. England is beleaguered by the long war with Napoleon. But a new conflict has arisen - a dangerous battle between two great magicians. The reclusive Mr Norrell, whose displays of magic send a thrill through the country, is challenged by the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange, who is young, handsome and daring - the antithesis of his older rival. Their struggle for supernatural supremacy soon overwhelms the one between the warring nations..."Clarke's imagination is prodigious, her pacing is masterly and she knows how to employ dry humour in the service of majesty... With a cheery tone, Clarke welcomes herself into an exalted company of British writers — not only, some might argue, Dickens and Austen, but also the fantasy legends Kenneth Grahame and George MacDonald — as well as contemporary writers like Susan Cooper and Philip Pullman ...prose can be rummy and startling ... In this fantasy, the master that magic serves is reverence for writing." - Gregory Macguire, The New York TimesSusanna Clarke has only written two novels - Piranesi was published in 2020 - but both have been critical and commercial hits. Jonathan Strange took her 10 years to write and was inspired by attending a fantasy-writing workshop. At least two publishers rejected the book before she sold the still unfinished manuscript to Bloomsbury for £1 million. Centuries ago, when magic still existed in England, the greatest magician of them all was the Raven King. A human child brought up by fairies, the Raven King blended fairy wisdom and human reason to create English magic. Now, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, he is barely more than a legend, and England, with its mad King and its dashing poets, no longer believes in practical magic. Then the reclusive Mr Norrell of Hurtfew Abbey appears and causes the statues of York Cathedral to speak and move. News spreads of the return of magic to England and, persuaded that he must help the government in the war against Napoleon, Mr Norrell goes to London. There he meets a brilliant young magician and takes him as a pupil. Jonathan Strange is charming, rich and arrogant. Together, they dazzle the country with their feats. But the partnership soon turns to rivalry. Mr Norrell has never conquered his lifelong habits of secrecy, while Strange will always be attracted to the wildest, most perilous magic. He becomes fascinated by the shadowy figure of the Raven King, and his heedless pursuit of long-forgotten magic threatens, not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything that he holds dear.--BOOK JACKET 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. In nineteenth-century England, all is going well for rich, reclusive Mr Norell, who has regained some of the power of England's magicians from the past, until a rival magician, Jonathan Strange, appears and becomes Mr Norrell's pupil.