"Sir?" said Mr Honeyfoot.
"Oh!" said Strange. "One hears of Mr Norrell in every place where the book trade is perpetrated from Newcastle to Penzance. The bookseller smiles and bows and says, 'Ah, sir, you are come too late! I had a great many books upon subjects magical and historical. But I sold them all to a very learned gentleman of Yorkshire.' It is always Norrell. One may buy, if one chuses, the books that Norrell has left behind. I generally find that the books that Mr Norrell leaves behind are really excellent things for lighting fires with."
- Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke, chapter 23
I'm only on page 438 of this tome (yes. tome. it's 1006 pages long. I'm pretty sure that qualifies it for tome status. tome experts, please advise), but I assure you that, thus far, it is simply sublime. Glorious, glorious. I'm in raptures. It's fantasy set in the early 1800s, with magicians and elves. And footnotes that go on for pages and pages, referencing books of magic and history and expanding upon everything in sight. Clarke's writing is marvellous, and the feel is splendidly magical. She gives a delightful sense, too, of a narrator, not telling you the story, but a real live person writing it down. Writing down a true story - it feels as though it must have really happened. Her characters are all real live people.
Recommended. Highly highly highly. I want to write like this.