Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Gorgeous March 1, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Gorgeous. Beautifully written, delectably malign English fairytales. It's as if Jane Austen met Harry Potter on a lonely path in a dark wood and beat him with a stick until he lost his mind.
A delightful collection December 18, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Susanna Clarke is clearly a gifted storyteller, I immensely enjoyed 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell' and though this is completely different (a collection of short stories instead of a massive novel), the tone, style, subject matter and overall atmosphere is very much the same. As in 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell' Susanna Clarke succeeds in interweaving fact and fiction in such a manner that it all comes across as eminently true and believable.
Perfect bed-time stories for adults!
 The Ladies of Grace Adieu, by Miss Susanna Clarke - a Critickal Review December 7, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have had cause to speak of Miss Clarke's writings before, in connexion with her work Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and therein the chief critickism I had to make was as to the length of that novel, which I judged to be some two hundred pages (out of eight hundred) too long. No such cavil attends the remarks I wish to make of this present collection, which consists of a number of shorter tales, set within the same fantastickal and fascinating other-England of the longer book. Each and all are nothing less than a delight from beginning to end. Miss Clarke has a remarkable facility for evoking the strange and alarming world of Faerie, and creates a truly enchanting atmosphere when writing of it and of the ways in which men and women can become entangled in it. As if that were not enough, she swims in the English language as a dolphin might swim in the Ocean, playing and leaping through its currents and tides with a sly smile on her face. To read stories at once so absorbing and so witty, and with such finely drawn characters, is a rare delight, and I for one can scarcely bear to wait for her promised sequel to her original novel, and learn more of her original and marvellous other-England, and of the men and women she has peopled it with - most especially that fascinating and enigmatic figure John Uskglass, the Raven King.
Addendum: I note that a moving picture is to be made of the adventures of Messrs Strange & Norrell. No good can come of this.
Beautifully written, an unsettling read. November 15, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Most of what made Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell so compelling is to be found here in small servings. There is the period language, the seamless weaving of Faerie into historical England and the dark cruelty of the magical creatures. When reading, one is simultaneously thrilled and entranced by the faultless use of language and discomforted by the prosaic menace within each of these little tales.
Whilst the novel is clearly a 5-star work, this collection loses one for lack of variety; without an over-arching narrative, the collection has to be saying new things from story to story and there's too little of this.
 Disappointing for me October 27, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I think I was expecting too much from this collection of short stories. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is my favourite book of all time, for many reasons, but mostly for it's sheer imaginative bravado.
This was a little predictable - too many of the stories had a similar theme, and once you know what it is the rest of the story becomes tedious. Susannah Clarke created the backdrop with Joanathan Strange - this book is just playing out some new characters in the same backdrop. There is really nothing new here.
I will wait with bated breath for the next instalment of Jonathan Strange. Was that first book just a one-off? I hope not...
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