Clarke's work tells of the restoration of English magic, some three or four centuries after the disappearance of its founding father. It is set in an alternate history, in which the familiar Kings and Queens of our own history are only the rulers of Southern England, and latterly the stewards of the north following the disappearance of the King in the North (a magician taken by fairies as a child, who as the Raven King laid the foundations of English magic.) Gilbert Norrell, the first practical magician in three centuries, is determined to be rational and respectable, but his first and only pupil Jonathan Strange is of a more romantic bent.
Norrell craves the favour of great men and an order of law to bind magic to his own pattern; Strange longs for grand magic and the notice of the Raven King. The two magicians break with one another even as a sinister and otherworldly foe moves against them, and those around them are caught up in the conflict to their own detriment. At last, the two come together for what many believe will be a duel to the death, but which has far greater stakes than that.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a grand and sweeping work (weighing in on Audible at 32 hours), full of footnotes and digressions laying out the history of English magic in tantalising snippets, from the rule of the Raven King in the North and the golden age of the Aureate magicians, through the decline of the Argentine or silver age, to a time of mere theory, when gentleman magicians scorn the idea of casting spells in order to excuse the fact that they can not do so. It is a world in which northern magic threatens southern rule, and even the potential existence of female magicians is seen as a threat to a typically Regency social order in which women have no place in politics and power.
As the story of the beginning of the return of English magic in this era, and the story of two gentleman magicians, the book is quite light on strong female characterisations (I complained of this in the first episode of the TV adaptation, but on revisiting the book it is striking how much was done to beef up the female characters there.) Arabella Strange is strong-willed, but ultimately becomes a victim to be rescued, and even the more dynamic Lady Pole is driven largely by emotion rather than the presumed masculine preserve of rationality. In part, this is due to the nature of the text as a facsimile of a period manuscript, but especially given that one of the key differences between the two magicians is that Mr Norrell considers women entirely unsuited to magical study while Mr Strange is noted to be more comfortable in female company than male, it is a shame not to see more of women.
It has been argued that the narrator - the pseudobiographical nature and scholarly layout of the text is suggestive of a specific narrator, rather than an authorial voice - is one of the new breed of female magicians who emerge alongside their male counterparts from the novel's climax, and there are hints of this even through Prebble's reading in the narrative's hints to the folly of men, and especially of men who do not pay mind to the value of women (see also and especially the short story 'The Ladies of Grace Adieu' in the collection of the same name, Clarke's only other published work of fiction, and the audio short story 'The Dweller in High Places' for a strong, period female lead from the same author.)
Not without its flaws then, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is however still an impressive work, and most of those flaws are answered by its place in the wider canon of Clarke's short stories.
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