The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke
Susanna Clarke's much-acclaimed 2004 novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell explored a world in which real English history and fairy folklore are deeply entwined, where magicians aided in the war against Napoleon and fairy lords intervened in mortal affairs to no good end. Since Clarke took ten years to write the novel, a sequel or follow-up was probably not going to appear soon, so author and publishers chose to release a collection of short stories as a stop-gap in 2006. The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories collects together eight short stories, all of them previously available (apart from the last one) and most of them set in the same alternate reality as Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (though one, 'The Duke of Wellington Misplaces His Horse', actually takes place in the setting of Neil Gaiman's novel Stardust ). For the most part the writing style is similar to that of the more celebrated novel, a mixture of whimsy and more serious themes played out with ...