The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

from the very first paragraph we were enchanted... dear lovers of faery lore and magic, ... by these stories written by the author of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel. If you loved that book, which these elves did, you will surely enjoy these charming stories, written in the same period and of the same cloth, so to speak. The first and title story involves Jonathan Strange and the Ladies of Grace Adieu and the last the Raven King, and between them the book is filled with magic, the sidhe (faery folk) and beautiful writing, which is a great magic in itself. We hope she writes more, much, much more. kyela, the silver elves

Susanna Clarke made a dazzling debut with "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell," which was the sort of fantasy story that Jane Austen would have written, had she lived around magic and fey. Still fresh from her first bestseller, she presents a new array of captivating stories in "The Ladies of Grace Adieu." But expect it to be more whimsical and varied, rather than a sprawling fantasy-historical epic -- these are more like nuggets. The title story takes place in the magical Regency period of her debut: dull Mr. Field remarries after his wife died, and his pretty second wife, his niece, and a friend soon become good friends. When Mr. Strange passes by on a family errand, he discovers that there is more -- these ladies are all magicians, and have quietly escaped the boundaries placed by society. From there on, Clarke trips through a series of strange, fantastical stories: when a young newlywed finds that her rich hubby expects her to spin flax, she asks for help from a nasty little fairy, who will kidnap her if she doesn't guess his name. Think a Regency "Rumplestiltskin." Then a young lady tries to regain her boyfriend from the mysterious "Mrs. Mabb"; a Duke changes his destiny with a pair of scissors and a needle; a Jewish doctor and a fairy nobleman travel through England; the Queen of Scots becomes fascinated by an embroidered figure; and a young pastor finds himself enmeshed with a cruel fairy lord. One of the stories is even set in the world of Neil Gaiman's "Stardust." "The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories" is more fantasy and less history than the full-length novel, although it leans more heavily on history. But then, most of these short stories may not be in the same universe, and they range from whimsical little fluff pieces to almost-horror. Clarke still writes with the solid nineteenth-century style, flavoured with shimmering descriptions of "Pharisees" and odd creatures, although Clarke occasionally skimps on the more exotic descriptions -- just what do "goblin babies" look like? The second story is also amusingly written in much-mispelled English ("...lookes at me with his bewtiful Eyes..."), and Clarke peppers the other stories with older words like "shewed." There are also some deeper moments, where Clarke approaches the lack of freedom given to women (magical or not) where they only have marriage to a well-off dullard to look forward to. And though the shorter stories are not much more than fables, the longer ones have intriguing characters who are likable in an understated way -- including some very familiar, quirky ones. "The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories" is a solid little collection, more whimsical than Clarke's first book. Very pleasant Regency "Pharisee" tales, from a modern master.

The moment I finished Susanna Clarke's wonderful first novel "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell", I wished that there was more of it. It was a long wait, but finally the fans of Clarke's magically-soaked nineteenth-century Britain have a sequel - of sorts. Clarke presents eight short stories concerned with the presence of Faerie in England, and its influence on human inhabitants, all set in the same universe (with the same magical structure) as her previous work. However, it's more of a companion piece than a sequel, considering it does not continue the story told in her novel, but expands on several of its ideas and subplots. This is particularly the case in the title story, "The Ladies of Grace Adieu", in which we find out why Jonathan Strange was so eager to remove his brother-in-law from the province of Gloucestershire (as mentioned in footnote 2, chapter 43 of "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell"). The ladies in question are Mrs Field and her step-niece Miss Cassandra Parbringer, who are close friends with Miss Tobias, a young governess who is the warden of two young heiresses in a wealthy estate. When the women are confronted by both a gold-digging young captain and a suspicious Jonathan Strange, they take matters into their own hands - calling up their own magical arts. It is a mysterious, charming and beautifully written story, capturing what her fans love best about Clarke's work: her delicate prose, her sense of humour, her grasp of the darker side of Faerie, and her refusal to tell the reader everything. Instead, we are given precisely what we need to make sense of the story, whilst many of the details are left mysteriously obscure. It is also the story that is most dependent on a reader's prior familiarity with "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell", and though it is not essential that the masterwork be read first, it's certainly recommended. "On Lickerish Hill" is an intriguing retelling of the Rumplestiltskin story, told in first-person narrative by a young wife who secures the help of a faerie-creature in completing the demands set to her by her husband. But can she pay the price demanded of her? Its most memorable feature is its use of Suffolk dialect to tell the tale. Here's an example of the prose used in the opening sentence: "When I waz a child I lived at Dr Quince's on the other side of Lickerish Hill. Sometimes in a winters-twilight I have look't out of Dr Quince's windowe and seen Lickerish Hill (where the Pharisees live) like a long brown shippe upon a grey sea and I have seen far-awaie lights like silver stares among the dark trees." The third story again pits a young woman against the tricky and selfish nature of Faerie, in the bittersweet and sometimes disturbing "Mrs Mabb". This time, a young woman called Venetia Moore is on the hunt for her lost love after the elusive Mrs Mabb steals him away. Hearing different accounts of her rival wherever she goes, Venetia goes on the hunt for the house in which she believes her sweet

For those who have read _Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell_: This book is essentially a collection of short stories of the same kind as the various snippets included as footnotes in _Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell_, but of greater length -- not so much a sequel as a collection of spin-off tales. It even includes at least one story referred to in that book but never detailed therein (the tale of John Uskglass and the Cumbrian charcoal burner). Only one of the stories features either Strange or Norell as characters, but all of them (with the possible exception of "The Duke of Wellington Misplaces his Horse," which is set in or perhaps overlaps with, the setting of Neil Gaiman's _Stardust_) are set in and flesh out the same world. All share the same dryly witty, intelligent, intellectually charming writing style that made the prior novel so worthwhile. In some ways, this collection shows more technical expertise than _Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell_, because the stories include a number of different viewpoints, use different stylistic devices, and achieve a different range of effects than found in the novel. The author has a wider range to play with here, outside the limits of a single novel's plotline, and she takes excellent advantage of that. For those who have not: If you like Jane Austen, have a strong taste for 18th or 19th century fiction or fantasy stories, like Neil Gaiman's _Stardust_ or Lord Dunsany's works, or find the thought of an mix of those two sources appealing, this book will probably appeal to you very strongly and I recommend it highly. It may be the first original short-story collection in a very long time to draw upon the same tradition as the old classics like Howard Pyle's _Wonder Clock_ or the old Andrew Lang _[color] Fairy Books_, with the exception and improvement that this story collection has its own sensibility, style, and manner -- this is not a random medley of folk tales, but a deliberate product of a skilled writer working to create a specific fantasy milieu. It would be relatively accurate to describe the book as a collection, not of "fairy tales," but of recorded, historical stories about fairies from a world whose history ran (mostly) parallel to our own, but with slightly more magic. Most of the stories are written with a dry, highly mannered wit, very reminiscent of Jane Austen's writing style -- a deliberate conciet, I'm sure, and very well executed (One of the stories in the collection is an exception, a version of a classic fairy tale written in period Suffolk dialect; it may be the best-executed of the lot).This is "historical fiction" of a very specific kind. Only two stories feature historical characters ("The Duke of Wellington Misplaces his Horse" and "Antickes and Frets," which concerns Mary Queen of Scots), but the setting, tone, and style are all set in the 18th or 19th centuries and executed as if the stories were written by period authors. This is not the sort of "historical fictio