Susanna Clarke
Susanna Clarke
Susanna Mary Clarkeis an English author best known for her debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, a Hugo Award-winning alternative history. Clarke began Jonathan Strange in 1993 and worked on it during her spare time. For the next decade, she published short stories from the Strange universe, but it was not until 2003 that Bloomsbury bought her manuscript and began work on its publication. The novel became a best-seller...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth1 November 1959
century home inclined
I feel very much at home in the early nineteenth century and am not inclined to leave it.
except full liked people rooms
I always really liked magicians. I'm not even sure why - except that they know things other people don't, and they live in untidy rooms full of strange objects.
confess fanny rather spite teens
I must confess that in my teens and twenties, I loved 'Mansfield Park' rather in spite of Fanny than because of her. Like Fanny's rich, sophisticated cousins, I didn't really get her.
turned
In some ways, 'Mansfield Park' is 'Pride and Prejudice' turned inside out.
defy fanny gentle given heroines jane subversive supposed utterly
She doesn't do the things heroines are supposed to. Which is rather Jane Austen's point - Fanny is her subversive heroine. She is gentle and self-doubting and utterly feminine; and given the right circumstances, she would defy an army.
austen jane trying
I tell stories. I kind of stumbled on that by trying to combine Jane Austen and magic.
comics convey dominated moore since
It's not easy to convey to someone who doesn't read comics just how Alan Moore has dominated the field since 'Watchmen.'
lose possible series stretch tv
The phone conversations about a possible TV series of 'Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell' stretch back years, but now that the moment has come, now that I am actually here at Wentworth Woodhouse, I lose my bearings.
senior country names
She even learnt the language of a strange country which Senior Cosetti had been told some people believed still existed, although no-one in the world could say where it was. The name of this country was Wales.
lovers creation rational
Lovers are rarely the most rational beings in creation...
yorkshire dutch strange
Unfortunately, Childermass's French was so strongly accented by his native Yorkshire that Minervois did not understand and asked Strange if Childermass was Dutch.
kings rain wind
The land is all too shallow It is painted on the sky And trembles like the wind-shook rain When the Raven King passed by
kings long frowning
Well, Henry, you can cease frowning at me. If I am a magician, I am a very indifferent one. Other adepts summon up fairy-spirits and long-dead kings. I appear to have conjured the spirit of a banker.
drawing habit observation
Drawing teaches habits of close observation that will always be useful.