The year is 1806. England is beleaguered by the long war with Napoleon, and centuries have passed since practical magicians faded into the nation's past. But scholars of this glorious history discover that one remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell whose displays of magic send a thrill through the country. Proceeding to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange. Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very opposite of Norrell.

So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men which overwhelms the one between England and France. And their own obsessions and secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine.

Susanna Clarke was born in Nottingham, UK, in 1959. She has published seven short stories and novellas in US anthologies. From 1993 to 2003 Susanna was an editor at Simon and Schuster's Cambridge office, where she worked on their cookery list. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is her first novel. She lives in Cambridge with her partner, the novelist and reviewer Colin Greenland.