The Eyre Affair

It’s 1985 in England, at least on the calendar; the Crimean War is in its hundred-and-thirty-first year; time travel is nothing new; Japanese tourists slip in and out of Victorian novels; and the literary branch of the special police, led gamely by the beguiling Thursday Next, are pursuing Acheron Hades, who has stolen the manuscript of “Martin Chuzzlewit” and set his sights on kidnapping the character Jane Eyre, a theft that could have disastrous consequences for Brontë lovers who like their story straight. This rambunctious caper could be taken as a warning about what might happen if society considered literature really important-like, say, energy futures or accounting. * The New Yorker *“Neatly delivers alternate history, Monty Pythonesque comedy skits, Grand Guignol supervillains, thwarted lovers, po-mo intertextuality, political commentary, time travel, vampires, absent-minded inventors, a hard-boiled narrator, and lots, lots more… . Suspend your disbelief, find a quiet corner and just surrender to the storytelling voice of the unstoppable, ever-resourceful Thursday Next.” * The Washington Post *“Fforde’s imaginative novel will satiate readers looking for a Harry Potter-esque tale… . The Eyre Affair’s literary wonderland recalls Douglas Adams’s Hitchhikers series, the works of Lewis Carroll and Woody Allen’s The Kugelmass Episode.” * USA Today *[Thursday Next is] part Bridget Jones, part Nancy Drew, and part Dirty Harry. * New York Times *Delightfully clever … Filled with clever wordplay, literary allusion and bibliowit, The Eyre Affair combines elements of Monty Python, Harry Potter, Stephen Hawking and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but its quirky charm is all its own * Wall Street Journal *Jasper Fforde’s first novel, The Eyre Affair, is a spirited sendup of genre fiction-it’s part hardboiled mystery, part time-machine caper-that features a sassy, well-read ‘Special Operative in literary detection’ named Thursday Next, who will put you more in mind of Bridget Jones than Miss Marple. Fforde delivers almost every sentence with a sly wink, and he’s got an easy way with wordplay, trivia, and inside jokes… . Fforde’s verve is rarely less than infectious * The New York Times Book Review *Always ridiculous, often hilarious … blink and you miss a vital narrative leap. There are shades of Douglas Adams, Lewis Carroll, ‘Clockwork Orange’ and ‘1984’. And that’s just for starters * Time Out *

Jasper Fforde (Author)

Jasper Fforde spent twenty years in the film business before debuting on the New York Times bestseller list with The Eyre Affair in 2001. Since then he has written another fifteen novels, including the Number One Sunday Times bestseller One of our Thursdays is Missing, and the Last Dragonslayer series, adapted for television by Sky.

Fforde lives and works in his adopted nation of Wales.