72 pages • 2 hours read
Susanna ClarkeJonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2004A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Volume 1, Chapters 13-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Volume 1: “Mr Norrell”
Volume 1, Chapter 13 Summary: “The magician of Threadneedle-street”
Vinculus, a street magician, talks his way into Norrell’s London library where Norrell is reading Lanchester’s The Language of Birds, an old book full of talk about the Raven King and his ravens. Norrell is offended by Vinculus’s brand of magic and scolds him because “[b]ooks and papers are the basis of good scholarship” and are the precise tools needed to put magic “on the same footing as the other disciplines” (129).
Vinculus scorns Norrell. He also delivers a prophecy about a king who will call on all the natural forces of England to crush his enemies. The prophecy is also about “a nameless slave” (130) who will wear a crown and become king. Vinculus tells Norrell that there will be two magicians in England: one who hates the Raven King and one who wants to see the Raven King. One will lose his most precious thing to another. The first king will be in the hands of dishonest people, while the second will wander, looking for a “dark tower” (132). Norrell notices a “curving mark of a vivid blue, not unlike the upward stroke of a pen” (131) on Vinculus’s chest during the encounter. Norrell has his servants throw Vinculus out.
Norrell recognizes these prophecies as ones about the Raven King or else about Norrell’s own downfall. Norrell is terrified until he recovers his self-assurance about his own importance. He instructs Lord Portishead, the editor of his journal The Friends of English Magic, to write a scathing critique of The Language of Birds by Lanchester for its focus on the Raven King.
Volume 1, Chapter 14 Summary: “Heart-break Farm”
The narrator introduces Jonathan Strange. Laurence Strange (his father) was a malicious man who married his wife for money and used the money to pay off the debts on his estate, then lent the money out to increase his income. He neglected his wife so much that she died, leaving her son as her heir. Laurence Strange tried to take the estate from Jonathan, but a long court case resulted in the boy getting to keep his inheritance. Laurence was stingy with his son and gladly sent him to live with his wife’s relations in metropolitan Edinburgh for half the year so he would not have to pay for the boy’s upkeep. In a footnote, the writer references John Segundus’s biography of Jonathan Strange; Strange apparently preferred intelligent women as a result of his yearly visits to Edinburgh. Laurence Strange froze to death after forcing his sick servant Jeremy Johns to leave the window open.
Volume 1, Chapter 15 Summary: “How is Lady Pole?“
Emma Pole’s charisma, beauty, and energy make her irresistible to the lords, gentry, and social climbers. Accustomed to running an orderly London household, Stephen Black, the Black British butler of Walter Pole, is exasperated when the servants from Emma’s northern estate shirk their duties because of outlandish claims—sad music in one room, bells ringing in the house, a disturbing forest growing up around the house, a man with poufs of white hair and a green coat appearing behind Emma’s chair. Stephen also notes that there is something off about Emma. She moves so quickly that she frequently startles people, and she lives life at a faster tempo than those around her. These odd effects in the house and Emma’s speed are the first signs that something has gone awry with the magic Norrell used to resurrect her.
Volume 1, Chapter 16 Summary: “Lost-hope”
Stephen has his own strange experience. After answering a servant bell that he has never seen and that is connected to a room that he has never heard of, he ends up in the gray room of the Lord of Lost-hope, who turns out to be the fairy that Norrell conjured to resurrect Emma. The Lord of Lost-hope’s room is gloomy and made of stone—quite unlike the London house—because it is located in the land of Faerie. The Lord of Lost-hope is arrogant, looks down on most humans, and is susceptible to deference and flattery. Stephen’s excellent manners and superior skills as a butler convince the Lord of Lost-hope that the butler must be a prince rather than a servant. He forces Stephen to come to a ball with him that night, and Stephen is shocked to see Lady Pole there as well. The Lord of Lost-hope presents her with a gift, the missing little finger from her left hand, which he keeps in an ornate box. The Lord of Lost-hope and Lady Pole dance all night.
Volume 1, Chapter 17 Summary: “The unaccountable appearance of twenty-five guineas”
Mrs. Brandy, a beautiful widow with a shop and a crush on Stephen Black, has an odd experience as well. Twenty-five guineas that should not be in the till inexplicably appear. The gold warps everything and everyone around it, but no one notices these changes. She asks Stephen for his advice, but he is too tired and distracted; he feels as if he has been up all night dancing. He is short with her. On his way home, Stephen bumps into a man. The man, like many English people, harbors prejudice against people of African descent, so the man believes that Stephen means to rob him. Just as the man is about to beat Stephen with his cane, all the people in fashionable Piccadilly become trees. Stephen finds a path through the dark, looming woods until he comes to a stone manor with human bones and broken machinery and tools all around it. It is Lost-hope, and the fairies are still inside dancing.
Volume 1, Chapter 18 Summary: “Sir Walter consults gentlemen in several professions”
Two weeks into her marriage, Lady Pole becomes listless and withdrawn. She sits still all day and complains of endless dancing and music. Those who come near her hear a bell sounding, and all the servants, including the sensible Stephen, claim that the house is haunted. Walter Pole even sees the Lord of Lost-hope. When Pole follows the advice of his government friends to talk to Norrell about Lady Pole, Norrell references an obscure text and claims that Lady Pole is suffering from a spiritual malady; he also claims to know nothing of the man with the thistle-down hair. A long footnote on the debates over magical maladies, including a detailed reference on the text Norrell mentions, is included. Norrell conjures the Lord of Lost-hope. When Norrell demands to know why Lady Pole is dying instead of living half her life among friends, the man laughs at him because Norrell never specified when the half might occur. The fairy’s half occurs every night.
Volume 1, Chapter 19 Summary: “The Peep-O’Day-Boys”
Stephen cannot shake his melancholy, but no one notices so long as he does his work. He goes to socialize with the Peep O’Day Boys, a group of upper servants who work in fashionable London households, but the fairy turns up at the club. The Lord of Lost-hope says that Stephen is merely oppressed by the Poles, who stand in the way of his becoming the king he should be. Spending every night dancing at Lost-hope is just the thing to cheer Stephen up, the fairy decides.
At first, Stephen ignores the fairy’s accusations about the Poles because he is grateful that Walter Pole paid for his education out of the limited funds left after the death of the elder Pole. When the fairy claims the Poles have wrapped Stephen in chains, Stephen has a startling vision of “a dark place—a terrible place—a place full of horror […] There were shadows in the darkness and the slither and clank of heavy iron chains” (186-87). This is likely a description of a slaving ship. Stephen cannot recall ever having been in such a place, so he suspects that the man with the thistle-down hair is manipulating his mind.
Volume 1, Chapter 20 Summary: “The Unlikely Milliner”
The ministers grow weary of Norrell’s constant pestering about the regulation of magic. They at first think he wants to start a school for magicians, but when they realize he wants to ensure that he remains the only magician, they pawn him off on Walter Pole. Pole deflects Norrell’s attention by sending him to talk to the mayor of London, who agrees to evict all the street magicians—poor people who frequently engage in trickery to earn a small living. Soon only Vinculus is left. Norrell sends Childermass, armed with three written spells that Childermass can apparently perform, to clear out Vinculus. The spells don’t work, but Vinculus pockets them. Childermass takes Vinculus to a pub to persuade him to leave London.
Volume 1, Chapter 21 Summary: “The cards of Marseilles”
At the pub, Childermass accuses Vinculus of being a fraud who should clear out like all the other street-magicians. Vinculus responds, “[A]ll magicians lie and this one [Norrell] more than most“ (198). Vinculus repeats the prophecy. When Childermass presses him about the source of the prophecy, Vinculus claims it is from a book that is his only inheritance from his father and that Norrell will never find or own it, not for any price.
Childermass tells Vinculus’s fortune using cards of Marseilles (a deck of tarot-like cards that Childermass drew by hand). Vinculus’s spread includes the Page of Cups, a figure whose skin is covered in letters since Childermass drew it on the back side of a letter. The spread also includes a Knight of Wands, a man on a horse and brandishing a branch instead of the traditional club or wand. Vinculus will face an ordeal that he may or may not survive, and he will achieve whatever his purpose is. Vinculus assumes that Childermass will now understand that Vinculus is an important person with a destiny to fulfill, not just a penniless street magician.
Vinculus uses the deck to tell Childermass’s fortune. Every card he turns over is an emperor/king with a raven, even though the deck should only have one card with an emperor and no ravens at all. Vinculus warns that this fortune applies to Norrell’s past, present, and future. Norrell is furious when Childermass recounts these events, especially the notion of a book that Norrell cannot buy. Vinculus leaves London.
Volume 1, Chapter 22 Summary: “The Knight of Wands”
Strange decides to propose to Arabella Woodhope, the pretty daughter of a clergyman. Arabella constantly tells him to make something of himself and stop drinking and gambling away his days; he imagines her scolding him for his poor behavior. There is a substantial note on how he once tried to be a poet but failed. Now that he has his own property, he thinks that she will be receptive to marriage. On the trip to see her, Strange encounters people attempting to roust Vinculus from their village. They know Vinculus is a magician, and they want him gone, but they believe that waking him before he is ready “risks bringing his dreams out of his head and into the world“ (213), so they shush Strange and the manservant with him.
Vinculus wakes up anyway and tells Strange the prophecy about two magicians, their struggle, their losses, and the arrival of a king who will wake the trees and stones. Strange is the great magician that Vinculus has been looking for. Strange is flattered, and he gives Vinculus some change for three spells that Vinculus took from Childermass; the money saves Vinculus from incarceration in the “poorhouse.”
Strange arrives at Arabella’s house. When guests there ask Strange what profession he will take up now that his father is dead, Strange blurts out that he will be a magician. The chance encounter with Vinculus is likely behind this impromptu decision. No one believes him, so he performs one of the spells from Vinculus, the one to meant to reveal a person’s enemy. Norrell appears in the bowl of water that Strange uses for the spell, but Norrell looks so much like a banker that everyone assumes Strange must have botched the spell in some way.
Volume 1, Chapters 13-22 Analysis
Important relationships develop between characters in the novel, and Clarke’s focus on these relationships indicates the potent influence of the conventions of the novel of manners on her own writing. Like Austen before her, she paints a picture of society as a tangle of obligations and duties, with few spaces in which unconventionality is allowed.
Romantic relationships show the influence of class and status on the most intimate parts of life in the novel. Walter Pole must marry Emma because he will be financially ruined otherwise. However, relying upon Norrell to resurrect her obligates Pole to use his social and political capital on Norrell’s behalf, even though he knows that the lords in government look down on magic. With Pole as a patron, Norrell finally gains the access that all the scheming of Drawlight and Lascelles could not achieve.
In a similarly complex tangle of social obligations, Jonathan Strange and Arabella Woodhope are on the verge of a marriage that has likely been delayed because of Jonathan’s messy financial situation before his father’s death and also because of his failure to live up to class-based expectations for rich, young, and landed men of his status. Because he does not have a profession, Arabella, who is a daughter and sister of clergymen and is possessed of great beauty, feels comfortable rebuffing him and chiding him, so much so that he internalizes her voice as an inner critic that drives him to strive for self-improvement.
From the first, Jonathan Strange is a man who violates the conventions and codes of his class. Marriages, property, and status are relatively mundane concerns that he ignores unless they suit him. Magic is likely at work in the random way he falls into being a magician, but he is a chaotic man who seems open to odd occurrences such as finding Vinculus in the wild and performing a spell that actually works. Strange readily ignores mundane concerns like propriety and respectability because the Quest for Knowledge drives him. Like the empirical scientists of that century, he is interested in what he can do with magic, even if he doesn’t quite understand the theory behind it.
There are other figures who violate class norms because of their proximity to magic, but they do so because they have no other choice due to their lack of power and status. Stephen Black, a butler and a Black man living in an England in which slavery has been abolished for only a year, is drawn into magic by the more powerful Lord of Lost-hope. Stephen wants a safe, mundane life free of disorder, but both the manipulations of the fairy and his obligations to the Poles prevent him from realizing this dream.
Stephen’s vision of the slave ship is an important one that shows the nonsensical nature of the English obsession with order and class. The great irony of the fairy’s relationship with Stephen is that the fairy is determined to make Black a king even if that is not what Stephen wants. The idea of Stephen as a king is presumably Clarke’s satire on notions of what makes one a gentleman or noble. Stephen is gentlemanly but not a gentleman. He behaves nobly, more so than any of his employers, because of what he does, not who he is or who he was born to be. Ironically, it takes an amoral, magical fairy to point that out, however.
The subversions of class norms and conventions are accelerated in this section as magic because more ubiquitous. Lady Pole stops entertaining and being everything that Walter Pole expects in a wife because she is in the grips of an enchantment. Vinculus, a penniless street magician, carries a book that even the wealthy Norrell cannot buy and breaches Norrell’s library in London to deliver his prophecy. Thus, Clarke demonstrates that magic can be a leveling force when it comes to class and status.
In these chapters, Clarke also establishes the terms of the contest over power, both between theory and practice, and between the magical world and the mundane world. Strange, Vinculus, the resurrected Lady Pole, and Stephen Black are all figures whom disorder follows because of magic. All four have their feet in two worlds—quite literally so in the case of Stephen Black and Lady Pole. On the other side of the contest stand Childermass and Norrell.
Childermass exists to do Norrell’s bidding by buying up books and running people like Vinculus out of London. Although Childermass is a servant of the embodiment of good magical order, he goes about his business in ways that Norrell would surely disapprove of if he knew of them, including through the use of tarot cards, which Norrell sees as low magic. Childermass’s skirting of Norrell’s expectations and Norrell’s eventual decision to perform big, showy magic in the Napoleonic Wars show that there is something inherently chaotic about the practice of magic.
The footnotes should be a counterweight to the wild, increasingly out-of-control nature of magic, but they are not. Some are so voluminous that they take up lots of space in both electronic and print versions of the text. These long notes sometimes focus on minutiae unlikely to be of more interest to the reader than the actual narrative, which seems to be the point. Clarke uses these pedantic references to render her alternative England more real and concrete, but she is also poking fun at the idea of theorists who focus on such details and ignore the larger events occurring right in front of them. Some of the footnotes thus undercut the linear nature of the narrative, and this is a deliberate effect on Clarke’s part, as well as a wry, tongue-in-cheek example of form following function. In Chapter 13, there is a citation of John Segundus’s biography of Jonathan Strange, a reference implying that both of these characters will be of some importance far into the future of the narrative. (Such foreshadowing footnotes are also common in 19th-century texts.)
Finally, the footnotes frequently represent debates over magical history and concepts. Much of the knowledge of English magic is hidden in Norrell’s library. The Friends of English Magic is the only other venue for the circulation of magical knowledge, but Norrell’s petty insistence that Portishead give The Language of Birds a poor review because Norrell is angry at Vinculus shows that what counts as knowledge is subject to the whims of a few.
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