Finishing Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell can leave you searching for a very particular kind of fantasy. Susanna Clarke makes magic feel like a forgotten branch of history, complete with scholarly arguments, social snobbery, unsettling fairy encounters, and books that seem almost real enough to find in a library.
The best books like Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell capture different parts of that experience. Some offer another England transformed by magic. Others explore rival magicians, dangerous knowledge, or folklore woven into everyday life.
For the closest Regency fantasy match, start with Sorcerer to the Crown. For more of Clarke’s own fairy magic, choose The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories. Here are ten books worth considering, depending on what you loved most.
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1. Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
Best for: Regency manners, magical institutions, and social satire.
England’s supply of magic is dwindling, and Zacharias Wythe, the Sorcerer Royal, faces a magical establishment already hostile to his authority. His efforts to understand the crisis bring him into contact with Prunella Gentlewoman, whose extraordinary abilities threaten established ideas about who should practice sorcery.
This is my first recommendation for readers who want another historical England where magic comes tangled in etiquette, reputation, and institutional prejudice. Cho gives those exclusions particular attention, making race and gender central to the struggle over magical authority.
Expect a brisker, more playful experience than Clarke’s sprawling novel, with plenty of wit and fairy complications.
Find Sorcerer to the Crown on Amazon.
2. The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke
Best for: Clarke’s voice, unsettling fairies, and familiar figures.
The most direct follow-up is this short-story collection, which includes appearances by Jonathan Strange and the Raven King. Its stories bring together historical figures, dangerous enchantments, and people discovering that fairy logic rarely respects human expectations.
The appeal lies in Clarke’s ability to make a drawing-room conversation feel only a step away from something ancient and frightening. Politeness offers little protection when magic becomes involved.
This is a collection rather than a full-length sequel. Choose it for smaller encounters with Clarke’s imagination, especially if you enjoyed the sense that her novel’s main plot occupied just one corner of a much larger magical history.
Explore The Ladies of Grace Adieu on Amazon.
For more of her work, see our Susanna Clarke books in order guide.
3. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
Best for: Victorian atmosphere, intricate mysteries, and unusual inventions.
Thaniel Steepleton’s life changes after a mysterious pocket watch leads him toward Keita Mori, a Japanese watchmaker living in London. Their story intertwines with that of Grace Carrow, a scientist pursuing questions of her own.
Pulley builds a historical world where extraordinary possibilities emerge through apparently ordinary objects. The result is especially appealing if you liked the way Clarke lets the uncanny seep into familiar streets and respectable professions.
The focus is more intimate than the national restoration of English magic. Relationships, uncertainty, and questions about how much people can understand or control give this novel its particular pull.
Find The Watchmaker of Filigree Street on Amazon.
4. Babel by R. F. Kuang
Best for: Scholarly magic, footnotes, and questions about power.
Robin Swift studies at Oxford’s Royal Institute of Translation, where linguistic knowledge enables silver-working: magic that draws power from meanings lost between languages. That academic achievement also helps sustain the British Empire.
Babel belongs on this list because it takes scholarly fantasy in a forcefully political direction. Like Clarke’s novel, it makes learning, access, and authority essential to understanding magic. Kuang places colonial exploitation at the center of those questions.
Readers drawn to libraries, historical detail, and the consequences of controlling knowledge have plenty to explore here. Expect a more confrontational tone and a university-centered narrative.
5. The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
Best for: Patient storytelling, folklore, and a deeply inhabited historical setting.
In turn-of-the-century New York, Chava, a golem made of clay, and Ahmad, a jinni associated with fire, must navigate human communities while concealing their extraordinary identities.
Wecker brings Jewish and Middle Eastern folklore into a city shaped by migration, work, faith, and loneliness. The setting matters because the supernatural characters must live within its social world, finding routines and relationships as well as confronting danger.
This is a strong choice if you enjoyed settling into Clarke’s world and watching an extensive cast gradually reveal its connections. The central concerns are belonging and freedom, giving the historical fantasy a different emotional texture.
Find The Golem and the Jinni on Amazon.
6. His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
Best for: The Napoleonic setting and fantasy that changes military history.
When naval captain Will Laurence encounters a dragon egg aboard a captured French ship, his future becomes bound to the dragon Temeraire. Their partnership draws him into an aerial corps fighting during the Napoleonic Wars.
If Jonathan Strange’s wartime service was one of your favorite parts of Clarke’s novel, this is the clearest next step. Novik asks how the presence of dragons would reshape warfare, service, and the relationships between those doing the fighting.
The novel moves more quickly and emphasizes adventure, training, and companionship. It begins the Temeraire series and was published in the UK as Temeraire.
Meet Temeraire in His Majesty’s Dragon on Amazon.
7. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Best for: Rival magicians, elaborate enchantments, and immersive atmosphere.
A mysterious circus becomes the setting for a competition between Celia and Marco, two young magicians trained by rival mentors. Their creations delight visitors, even as the contest carries consequences the spectators cannot see.
The connection to Clarke is strongest in the tension between magical achievement and human cost. Wonderful creations can conceal obligations, manipulation, and danger.
Morgenstern puts more emphasis on romance and sensory detail, so this is a particularly good choice for readers seeking enchantment and atmosphere. Its relationship to historical fantasy comes through its nineteenth-century setting and period trappings, rather than a close engagement with real political events.
Step into The Night Circus on Amazon.
8. The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
Best for: Regency London, literary history, and dangerous hidden magic.
Literary scholar Brendan Doyle accompanies a group of time travelers to a lecture by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1810. After becoming stranded, he encounters a London filled with competing factions, Egyptian sorcery, and threats far beyond his academic expertise.
Powers offers a much more hectic journey through the magical past. The pleasure comes from discovering an occult story operating beneath recognizable history, with literary scholarship becoming unexpectedly useful and perilous.
Choose this if Clarke’s invented historical connections fascinated you and you want a faster adventure. Time travel is central to the premise, making it a historical fantasy with a different narrative engine.
Find The Anubis Gates on Amazon.
9. The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
Best for: Rediscovered magic, folklore, and challenges to established power.
In an alternate 1893, the Eastwood sisters become involved in the suffrage movement in New Salem. Their story brings witchcraft into the struggle for political rights, drawing on words, stories, and practices that have survived despite efforts to suppress them.
The connection to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell lies in the return of magic and the question of whose knowledge gets preserved. Harrow turns toward people excluded from official accounts of power.
This recommendation suits readers who want the recovery of magic to carry a strong political and emotional purpose. Family conflict and solidarity shape the story alongside its spells.
Explore The Once and Future Witches on Amazon.
10. The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss
Best for: Victorian literary references, eccentric characters, and inventive narration.
Mary Jekyll’s investigation into her family’s past brings her into contact with women connected to famous figures from Gothic fiction. With Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson also involved, the story combines a murder investigation with questions about the women’s origins.
This is a recommendation for the reader who enjoyed Clarke’s literary playfulness. Goss draws on familiar books and allows characters to interrupt the telling of their own story, creating humor through competing perspectives.
Its blend of Gothic science fiction, fantasy, and historical mystery gives it a distinct identity. Start here if you want an ensemble adventure with plenty of conversation and literary recognition.
Find The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter on Amazon.
Which Book Should You Read First?
For Regency society and magical bureaucracy, choose Sorcerer to the Crown. For Clarke’s own voice and fairy lore, pick up The Ladies of Grace Adieu. If scholarship and the control of knowledge interested you most, try Babel.
For a longer stay in a richly imagined historical community, The Golem and the Jinni is an appealing next read. And if you want to revisit what makes Clarke’s novel so distinctive, read our Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell review.
Which part of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell would you most like to find in your next book: the history, the humor, or the unsettling magic?
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