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.
Susanna Mary Clarke (born 1 November 1959) is an English author known for her debut novel *Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell* (2004), a Hugo Award-winning alternative history. Clarke began *Jonathan Strange* in 1993 and worked on it during her spare time. For the next decade, she published short stories from the *Strange* universe, but it was not until 2003 that Bloomsbury bought her manuscript and began work on its publication. The novel became a best-seller.
**Source**: [Susanna Clarke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_Clarke) on Wikipedia.
