It has been over twenty years since Susanna Clarke dropped a thousand-page brick of Regency magic onto our nightstands. Twenty years. Since 2004, fans have been obsessively hunting for news of a Strange and Norrell sequel. We want to know what happened to the two magicians trapped in the Pillar of Darkness. We want to know if John Childermass finally gets his due.
But honestly? Most of what you read online about this "upcoming" book is just hopeful echoing. There is no release date. No leaked manuscript. Just a writer who is very honest about how hard it is to build a world that large while battling a chronic illness.
The "Forest" of a Manuscript
Back when the first book became a global phenomenon, Susanna Clarke didn't hide the fact that she was working on a follow-up. She told interviewers that she was focusing on the "lower social orders" of her magical England. Specifically, characters like the street-magician Vinculus and the brilliant, grumpy John Childermass.
Then everything went quiet. For sixteen years.
When she finally reappeared in 2020 with the masterpiece Piranesi, she gave us the real story. She has been struggling with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). It’s a brutal condition. It makes decision-making feel like wading through waist-deep mud. In a 2020 interview with The Guardian, she described the Strange and Norrell sequel as being in a state of "uncontained bushes, shooting out in all directions." She called it a forest.
That is why Piranesi came out first. It was a smaller, more contained house for her mind to live in. The sequel to her debut is a sprawling, chaotic landscape that she simply hasn't been able to tame yet.
What the Sequel is Actually About
If you're expecting a direct continuation of Jonathan and Gilbert's bickering, you might be looking in the wrong place. Clarke has been pretty clear about her intentions. The magic of the first book was very "top-down." It was about gentlemen in libraries and soldiers on battlefields.
The Strange and Norrell sequel is supposed to be "bottom-up."
Key Details We Know:
- The Timeframe: It is set a few years after the events of the first book.
- The Cast: Childermass and Vinculus are the stars.
- The Vibe: It's less about the "Jane Austen stratum" and more about the rougher, muddier parts of England.
- The Stakes: The return of magic to England wasn't a clean event. It left things messy.
Think about the ending of the first book. Magic is back, but it's not the polite, academic magic Norrell wanted. It's the wild, dangerous magic of the Raven King. The sequel has to deal with the fallout of that. How does a regular person in a Bradford tavern handle the fact that the rain might start talking to them?
Why the Wait is So Long
Let’s talk about the 2024 and 2026 "updates." You might see listings for things like The Wood at Midwinter or The Bishop of Durham Attempts to Surrender the City.
Don't get your hopes up for a 900-page novel.
These are shorter works. The Wood at Midwinter is a gorgeous illustrated short story. It’s set in the same world, sure. It features a character named Merowen. It's bite-sized. The Bishop of Durham is similar—a fragment of the world she’s still building.
Clarke writes in fragments. She always has. She doesn't start at Chapter 1 and go to Chapter 100. She writes a scene about a crow, then a scene about a bridge, and eventually, she stitches them together. When you're dealing with a brain-fog-inducing illness, that stitching process becomes a Herculean task.
The Misconception of the "Trilogy"
People often call this an "unplanned trilogy." That’s not quite right. Clarke never promised three books. She just never finished the second one.
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Some readers think the BBC miniseries from 2015 was meant to kickstart a sequel on screen. It wasn't. Peter Harness, the writer for the show, did a brilliant job, but the show was a faithful adaptation of the existing book. It ended where the book ended. There is no secret script for Season 2 hidden in a vault at the BBC. Without a finished second book, there's no road map for a show.
Is it Ever Coming?
Kinda. Maybe.
In late 2024, during the 20th-anniversary celebrations of the first book, Clarke mentioned she’s still "at work" on things in that universe. But she’s 65 now. She’s firm about "writing the way she can." She isn't pushing herself to hit a corporate deadline.
If we get a Strange and Norrell sequel, it will likely look different than the first. It might be slimmer. It might be a collection of interconnected novellas. Honestly, after Piranesi, most fans are just happy she's writing at all.
Actionable Steps for Fans
If you are itching for more of this world and can't wait another decade, here is what you should actually do:
- Read "The Ladies of Grace Adieu": This is a collection of short stories by Clarke. Most people ignore it, but it’s literally set in the same world. It has the footnotes. It has the Duke of Portland. It’s the closest thing to a sequel we currently have.
- Check out "The Wood at Midwinter": Released recently (2024), it’s a short, wintry tale that proves she hasn't lost her touch for the eerie and the magical.
- Stop trusting "placeholder" dates: Retailers like Amazon or Book Depository often put "December 31" dates on books that don't exist yet just to fill their database. If Bloomsbury (her publisher) hasn't announced it, it isn't real.
- Follow the author's health updates: Understanding ME/CFS helps set realistic expectations. This isn't writer's block; it's a physical limitation.
The world of the Raven King is still there. It’s just currently obscured by a very thick English fog.