links

Looks like jonathanstrange.com finally got bored of everybody and went behind the rain, you guys. Geewhiz! I think that's poor judgement on Bloomsbury's part, actually; the site wasn't quite the electronic trompe l'oeil that it thought it was, but it was very much better than nothing. As a consolation prize, here are PDF and iTunes-ready MP3 copies of all the various Clarke interviews I downloaded off the site (a couple were behind a paywall & I didn't get them, sorry) as well as a copy of The Raven — available in one handsome, convenient, easy-to-carry zip file.

And you might want to check out the Susanne Clarke Seminar @ Crooked Timber, which until the day before yesterday I had never seen or heard of despite the fact that it's like the third Google result for "Susanna Clarke." Many of these essays are shiveringly awesome, and they offer the sort of critical analysis you aren't going to find here at Cynn Corvus (evereverever, unless I suffer a severe head injury and forget how desperately I hate attempting to offer critical analyses of books I love). It would seem that Clarke herself wrote one of those seminar essays for the Timberpeople, also too, in which she refers to the firmament of her stories as "John Uskglass's world," also also also too!

Here's The Library at Hurtfew. This amazing project spans the 'history' of Clarke's fiction in ways I didn't even realize were possible. The mods and contributors have done a much better job than I could ever, ever hope to do, and absolutely every element of the fictional universe of Strange & Norrell (and its satellite stories) has been set down in careful detail here. There are timelines, booklists, character lists, geographical indices, and anything else you could imagine. Incredible! (I am particularly fond of the entry on The King's Book.)

For fanwork, start with A Chaos of Ravens. Lillie is one of the best writers I've ever read (she's also one of the primary reasons I decided to continue on with this site), and her S&Nverse fanfic is a good way to survive until the next official publication. My favorites are The Glovemaker's Daughter, A Raven Embossed in Gold, and The Mysterious Death of Jane Tobias, but they're all fabulous. Also, don't miss out on her essays (which are really, really great), and her interpretation of the tarot drawing Vinculus did for Childermass, which is fascinating and suggestive.

Next, there's The Famulus, a LiveJournal community that hosts S&N-related fanfiction from many different authors. Slash is apparently quite welcome :]

Then, there's The King of Ravens, an LJ comm dedicated to general Clarke-related fanart.

There's The Stones of York, another LJ comm for the discussion of Clarke's writing.

I posted all my John Uskglass fanart bookmarks to a Delicious account, so you can see what he might look like if he looked like something. (He mostly looks like the baby Neil Gaiman and Bill Kaulitz would have if God loved us as much as everyone says He does.) If your artwork is posted here and you don't want it linked, let me know and I'll remove the entry. Conversely, if you've made a fanart of the character and it slipped through my greedy claws, please point it out to me.

Huckleberry Finn & Back from Yurrup by Mark Twain

The Vampyre by John Polidori & Manfred by Byron

To Lysander, On Desire & The Disappointment by Aphra Behn

The Mysteries of Udolpho & A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe

The Stolen Child & A Coat by W.B. Yeats

King John and the Abbot of Canterbury

The Battle Abbey Roll, by Catherine Powlett, Duchess of Cleveland

A Terrifying Summary of Common English Surnames, by the BBC. Wouldn't you have liked to go wandering around medieval England calling yourself 'Pretty John'?

The Historical Minutes of the Old Bailey. Yes, the Old Bailey is in London and it has nothing specifically to do with anything in Clarke's fiction, but I've lost entire days here. It's difficult to imagine how the Cinque Dragownes could've been any more draconian. (ZING!)

Here are links to a few of the northern England pages of the Uncyclopedia. I'm sure the articles are probably very offensive, but they're also kind of hilarious. Who knew that's what "tyke" actually means? (Hint: Not me.)

THE SUSANNA CLARKE FANLISTING!

THE JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL FANLISTING!

Have you got a Susanna Clarke-related link? Send it to me!

about the layout

This version of Cynn Corvus (probably the last until some new material is published, because there is a limit to the number of times even I can rewrite the same content) features a drawing-like thing I created ~~about a year~~ a couple of years ago. It's supposed to be John Uskglass, even though it looks a little bit like a Japanese lady. I've been looking for an opportunity to use it for ages and — HOORAY! — looks like I've finally found one.

The image was created in Illustrator CS4, using VerucaSalt82's hair-strand brushes and like four separate references, all of which are now gone/forgotten. You can get a bigger version to use as a desktop by clicking here.

Fonts are Helvetica & Helvetica Neue.

about the site

Cynn Corvus was born in 2006, although it's spent a considerable amount of time offline since then.

The content was written (mostly) in Google Docs.

The page was coded in TextMate, which still desperately needs an update.

Quote attributions! Sorry for the long wait:
1: horas non nvmero nisi serenas = a common inscription on Roman sundials, taken from this
1: Witchcraft has not a pedigree... = Emily Dickinson
2: All that I care to know is that a man is a human being... = Mark Twain, from Concerning the Jews
2: here in this world he changed his life = Thomas Malory, from Le Morte d'Arthur 21:7
3: Three for a girl, four for a boy = from "One for Sorrow," an awesome/creepy English nursery rhyme
3: Folks say she is terribly changed, dears = Charles Kingsley, from "The Lost Doll"
4: Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes = from the song "Hey There," sung by Rosemary Clooney
5: There is his motion in the flowing... = Wallace Stevens, from "In the Northwest," from Primordia
5: He has outsoared the shadow of our night = Percy Shelley, from Adonaïs
6: I play my part and you play your game... = from the Bon Jovi song "You Give Love a Bad Name"
6: We are all just prisoners here of our own device = The Eagles, from "Hotel California"
7: Rex quondam, Rexque futurus = Thomas Malory, from Le Morte d'Arthur 21:7
7: Why is a raven like a writing desk? = Lewis Carroll, from Alice in Wonderland (7: A Mad Tea-Party)
8: Since They, being once possessed, must stay possessors = from Cat, a poem by Jan Struther
8: 'Tis better to have loved and lost = Tennyson, from In Memoriam A.H.H.
9: My glass is full, and now my glass is run = from Tichborne's Elegy, by Chidiock Tichborne

ALSO, BECAUSE I LOVE YOU: I notice that I've been getting lots of hits from people Googling "Why is a raven like a writing desk?," presumably because they've seen the new Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland movie. Hi! I am sorry to tell you that this riddle has no answer — although I've seen two answers given frequently: "Poe wrote on both," and Carroll's original, name-brand nonsense answer: "Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!" Which was supposed to be a pun, with the 'never' spelled like 'nevar' to resemble a backwards 'raven,' but ~~luckily~~ unfortunately the joke was ruined by an editor during printing and we only found out afterwards. If you'll notice, though, the question is not HOW is a raven like a writing desk? (or even HOW is a writing desk like a raven?), but rather, WHY is a raven like a writing desk? But, a raven is not like a writing desk. ERGO, there can be no explanation for the analogy, as there is no analogy to explain. Remember that, even though the Hatter may look like Johnny Depp now, he is still mad. And even if he weren't, and a raven were like a writing desk, no one would know why, because no one really knows why anything is like it is. See, that's why Carroll called it 'Wonderland'; if it had been superficially explicable, it would've been 'Alice's Adventures in Cleveland.'

I'm hosted through Holdfire.

This and all my sites were made on a Mac.

I put idiotic footnotes on the first version of the site because I thought they would be funny, given the hypoinformative nature of the articles themselves. But now I refuse to give them up! I'm going to start putting footnotes in everything. Blog posts. Grocery lists. I'm going to footnote the bathtub with foaming cleanser, the next time I scrub it. I'm having my tombstone footnoted. Footnoting things is an unalienable right!

I believe I've corrected my most egregious errors in interpretation, but if you find something wrong please tell me.

Or, do you have general questions, or comments, or suggestions for improvement? You can send them to me via GTalk or e-mail, if you have time. I'll reply to you within a calendar week, else is not my name Pathfinder. (You can also contact me via Formspring, where I will be helpless but to answer you immediately.)

John Uskglass and his Kingdom of English Magic belong to Susanna Clarke and her publishers (and possibly to other people), and not to me.

Button images were extra-legally "borrowed" from Charles Vess's beautiful illustrations for The Ladies of Grace Adieu and John Uskglass and the Cumbrian Charcoal Burner.

Lastly, look at this fancy award the nice people at Amassment gave me:

Thank you!
~~Emma~~ Pathfinder

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