Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Before the king and Strange can re-enter the castle, they fall under an enchantment that draws them toward a dark, dangerous forest. Strange cannot resist the pull of the spell at first, but then he remembers one of Ormskirk’s spells against enchantment. It is a spell so simple that it seems ridiculous. For example, one should put the moon to one’s eyes and put bees to one’s ears to disenchant the senses of sight and sound. Every part of the spell is rooted in the natural world. The spell works, and Strange takes the king back to the castle. Strange doesn’t mention this episode to Norrell. When the two talk of fairies, Norrell admits there might be a few in England since there are mentions of them in magical histories. (He knows about the man with the thistle-down hair, so this is a lie). He refuses to speculate on whether fairies are harmful or helpful to mortals.

The man with the thistle-down hair tells Stephen that his plan to crown the butler king has hit a snag. The fairy was the one performing the magic at the castle, hoping to lure the king into the enchanted woods and kill him so that Stephen can become the king in England. Jonathan Strange foiled this plan with the ancient, powerful fairy spell that he used. The news that the fairy intends to kill the king and install Stephen as king strikes the butler as obscene and impractical, especially since the king has 13 potential heirs. The Lord of Lost-hope brushes aside these concerns.

A joint portrait of Norrell and Strange excites attention. Most people ignore Norrell in the portrait because he looks plain and arrogant. Jonathan Strange looks handsome and full of mischief, just what people expect of a magician. Strange insists he can see a mirror in the portrait, but no one else sees it. He has read of magicians who used mirrors to walk hidden paths, but Norrell, distracted by worry that Strange will ask to go to the library at Hurtfew, cannot give him any information about how to perform this magic. After the success of Ormskirk’s spell in protecting the king, Strange is more determined than ever to explore more of the Raven King’s wild magic.

Meanwhile, Drawlight and Lascelles attempt to drive a wedge between the two magicians by constantly talking of the library at Hurtfew, which Strange has yet to see. Strange discovers that Drawlight is offering correspondence courses in magic to rich victims by pretending that he is Jonathan Strange. Strange and his friends encounter one of these victims, a country gentleman who doesn’t believe Strange when he asserts the truth of his own identity. One of Strange’s companions says that Strange will prove himself by performing an unheard-of piece of magic: walking into a mirror from which he will not return. Strange does just that with no thought of the consequences.

Strange’s mirror path takes him to the home of Maria Bullworth, a woman that Drawlight is visiting. Once in the room, Strange discovers that Drawlight, claiming he is an intermediary for Strange, has promised the woman revenge on her relatives. (Her relatives cast her aside after she left her husband to have an affair with Lascelles, who is also on the list of people she wants dead or humiliated.) Strange reveals the truth to her. When Strange returns home, his family and his friends are all there, worried that something has happened to him. He tells him that nothing at all bad happened to him, and that he discovered the King’s Roads, the never-ending paths that allowed the Raven King to travel through all parts of England. He is eager to explore the King’s Roads, but the description makes it clear to Arabella and the others that there is no telling where these paths might take him and that no one has traveled on them for a long time. To keep the peace with his wife, Strange finally agrees not to go on these paths again until she gives him permission. In her turn, she promises that she will allow him to go if he asks about them again.

News soon spreads of Drawlight’s fraud, and he is barred from every door, including Lascelles’s. Norrell asks the government to revive the Cinque Dragownes, the court used to judge magical crimes during medieval times, but the lack of people who know magical law makes the idea impractical. Lord Liverpool, the chancellor, refuses to support the plan when Norrell explains that he needs the court to make sure that no other magician challenges him. Liverpool explains, “If other magicians think differently from you, then you must battle out [….] You must prove the superiority of your opinions, as I do in politics [….] in the face of constant criticism, opposition, and censure. That, sir, is the English way” (438-439). Drawlight’s fraud thus tarnishes English magic because it is now clear that a price can be put upon it. Strange and Norrell’s relationship is strained after Strange rejects the idea of the Cinque Dragownes and asks to travel the King’s Roads.

After having helped Lord Portishead to write The Extraordinary Revival of English Magic, a definitive book of magic that is in accordance with Norrell’s conservative ideas, Strange decides to publish a negative review of the book in The Edinburgh Review, a journal known for the promotion of radical and liberal ideas. Strange’s review is a scathing one in which he takes himself, Portishead, and Norrell to task for refusing to acknowledge the Raven King as the founder of a system of distinctively English magic. He dismisses out of hand the claim that the magic Uskglass performed was “black” magic, stating that the Raven King was a medieval king, and his actions therefore reflected the harsh values of the time in which he lived. The breadth and depth of knowledge in the review make it obvious that Strange is the author of the unsigned review, and the document is essentially a declaration of the end of his relationship with Norrell.

Norrell offers to share his library at Hurtfew if only Strange will reconcile with him, but Strange refuses. Norrell explains that he once wanted to conjure the Raven King because he is as conscious as Strange that the magic they do is John Uskglass’s. He reminds Strange that there is only one other magician, so they will be lost without each other. He even proposes a partnership. Strange turns him down but finds the next morning that he regrets the rift in their relationship. Lascelles convinces Norrell that it is only a matter of time before Strange, lacking the books he needs, will work to obtain the library at Hurtfew. The Stranges decide to return to Shropshire. Arabella visits Lady Pole once more and says goodbye to her other friend, the man with the thistle-down hair. When she tells Strange about her friend, he is surprised. When he asks around, no one seems to know of any such person living with the Poles.

The government sends Strange to Belgium with Wellington to fight the French and Bonaparte. For the first time ever, Strange is forced to do magic in the thick of a battle. He has to improvise, with his magic alternately failing and succeeding. For example, he cannot save many soldiers from a burning field hospital, but he is able to turn the tide at the Battle of Waterloo. Many English soldiers and officers die, and the things he does and sees that day sicken Strange.

Norrell sends Childermass to quash Segundus and Honeyfoot’s plan to set up a school of magic with the backing of a woman of the landed gentry. Childermass ignores him, but Norrell uses powerful allies in the government to stop the school from moving forward.

Jonathan Strange returns from the wars but goes straight to Shropshire to begin work on the definitive book on the practice of English magic. Norrell intended to write such a book but procrastinated because of his perfectionism. Norrell attempts to spy on Strange, but Strange blocks his surveillance by magical means. Meanwhile, the man with the thistle-down hair presses Stephen into service to find a moss-oak. The Lord of Lost-hope then sings a song to wake all the creatures, earth, rocks, and plants in England to his presence, a demonstration of his power in both the magical and mundane worlds. Stephen is overwhelmed as he realizes that the world is no longer as silent and inanimate as he assumed. Stephen notes that the moss-oak is just a tree with boggy water leaking from it. The man with the thistle-down hair assures him that the moss-oak is just the thing needed to trap Arabella Strange, a much better companion than Lady Pole, by whom the fairy is now bored.

In Shropshire, Arabella Strange misses the excitement of life in London, for her husband is so preoccupied with studying magic and writing his book that he neglects her. Mr. Hyde, the owner of a neighboring estate, tells Strange that he saw Arabella wandering outside in a snowstorm. She was dressed in a black dress, and Hyde heard the sad sound of bells ringing. Strange doesn’t believe him, but one snowy day, Arabella disappears. As the neighbors gather, they tell Strange more stories of seeing Arabella wandering in the snow as bells ring. The neighbors suspect that Arabella ran away to escape some cruelty or mistreatment by Strange. She finally turns up wearing a black dress, but Stephen has no clue that this Arabella is a moss-oak animated to look and sound like the real Arabella, who has been spirited away to the realm of Lost-hope.

The doppelganger of Arabella is strangely withdrawn and speaks only of rejoining her kin in the ground when Strange sharply questions her. The neighbors find this treatment harsh. Then, the company notices a pool of black water in the hall. A neighbor puts Arabella to bed. Over the next three days, she complains of pain in her crown and roots (the names for the top and bottom of a tree, respectively), but Strange cannot understand what this might mean. The doctor can do nothing for her, and she dies.