User:Chuckhoffmann/sandbox/Ch1
The library at Hurtfew is the first chapter of Susanna Clarke's history of the return of English magic, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It takes place from Autumn of 1806 to January of 1807.
Summary
We are first introduced to the Learned Society of York Magicians, a group of gentleman magicians, who are joined at a meeting of their society by John Segundus. At the meeting, Mr Segundus asks a question which has long vexed him: why is magic no longer done in England? Some of the magicians of the Learned Society chide Mr Segundus for daring to ask such a question, with the President of the Society, Dr Foxcastle declaring that magicians do not actually do magic; it is a subject for study, not practice. Mr Hart (or Hunt) states that actually doing magic is beneath a gentleman magician's dignity. Dr Foxcastle and Mr Hart (or Hunt) then have a disagreement with an opposing faction led by Mr Honeyfoot, who agrees with Segundus' question, and the meeting dissolves into a dispute — of astonishing pedantry and pettiness — between the two sides.
Mr Honeyfoot makes the acquaintance of Mr Segundus after the meeting and invites him to his home in High-Petergate. During Mr Segundus's visits over the next several weeks, the two magicians continue to debate and discuss the question, eventually deciding to write a letter to Mr Norrell, a magician who had previously been contacted by the Society but declined their invitation to join. Mr Honeyfoot proposes to meet Norrell and writes him a letter to this effect. Honeyfoot is greatly pleased when he receives an affirmative response. His general good nature does not allow him to notice the sarcasm in Norrell's letter, but Mr Segundus does, and views the prospective visit with some ill-ease.*
Mr Honeyfoot and Mr Segundus meet with Mr Norrell at his home at Hurtfew Abbey, located 14 miles outside the city of York. During their meeting in the drawing-room, Honeyfoot broaches the subject of Norrell's library. After a somewhat confusing and disorienting journey through the enchanted labyrinth that Norrell has constructed to protect it, the men arrive and encounter Mr Childermass, Mr Norrell's magister factotum, who Norrell describes as his man of business. Segundus and Honeyfoot are astounded by the size of Mr Norrell's library, which contains many books thought lost or that they have never even heard of.† Mr Norrell comments on the merits of the various authors, who he seems to have all found wanting to a greater or lesser degree.
Upon returning to the drawing-room, Mr Segundus puts his question - why is magic no longer done in England? - to Mr Norrell, who declares confidently that the question is incorrect, and that he is in fact "a tolerable practical magician."
Notes
* It is unclear why Norrell is so sarcastic when he'd only been contacted on the subject of magic once before. The Society, in their wisdom, had decided that someone with such small handwriting as was evidenced in Mr Norrell's letter of response could never make a good magician and not pursued the matter any further. Possibly he'd expected them to contact him again and he was annoyed by their not doing so, or perhaps he'd been annoyed after somehow getting word of their reaction to his handwriting, or he may have simply been annoyed that his studies were repeatedly being interrupted by this unsolicited and unwelcome correspondence. (Or perhaps the authoress would have benefited from a surer hand of editing as to render Norrell's motivation to venom clearer in her text.)
† Among the books the two men encounter are Jacques Belasis' The Instructions, all copies of which were long thought destroyed, and the anonymously-authored The Excellences of Christo-Judaic Magick. While Mr Segundus reads from both works, the enchantments Mr Norrell has placed on his library will prevent him from being able to recall the text later, or even that he had read them at all.