Author: Susanna Clarke
Date: 2004
Genre: Alternative History
Country: UK
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. It has been described as a fantasy novel, an alternative history, and a historical novel.