Susanna Clarke Books in Order — Jonathan Strange and Piranesi Guide
British author of two landmark fantasy novels — the Regency-era epic Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and the strange, unclassifiable Piranesi.
About Susanna Clarke
Susanna Clarke is a British fantasy author whose debut novel Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell took ten years to write and became an instant classic on publication in 2004. Her follow-up, Piranesi, is a much shorter and stranger work — a mystery set inside an impossible house of infinite halls and tidal statues. Both books are standalone and represent two very different registers of her imagination.
Where to Start
New readers should consider their mood. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a long, immersive Regency-era epic. Piranesi is short, strange, and best experienced with no prior knowledge of its premise — start there if you want something you can finish in a weekend.
Susanna Clarke Books in Order
Standalone Novels
Both books are completely independent — no shared characters, no shared world.
- 1
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Standalone Novel
Two rival magicians — the scholarly Mr Norrell and the brilliant, reckless Jonathan Strange — attempt to restore English magic during the Napoleonic Wars, with consequences neither anticipated. An 800-page Regency-era epic written in the style of a Victorian historical document, complete with footnotes. One of the landmark fantasy novels of the last thirty years.
Note: Start here for long, immersive Regency-era fantasy.
- 2
Piranesi
Standalone Novel
A man lives alone in a vast, impossible house of infinite halls and tidal statues, cataloguing its wonders and solving the mystery of how he came to be there. Shorter, stranger, and more unsettling than Jonathan Strange — best approached with no knowledge of its premise.
Note: Start here if you want something short and strange you can finish in a weekend.