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The Eyre Affair
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Read The Eyre Affair
Thursday Next: Book 1

The Eyre Affair (2001) (edit title/settings)

by Jasper Fforde (Author) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

Welcome to a surreal version of Great Britain, circa 1985, where time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously: it's a bibliophile's dream. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost... read more

Summary edit see section history

An alternate time-line exists in 1985, one in which literature is the most important part of peoples' lives. There are John Milton conferences, an audience participation of Richard III (reminiscent of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show") and LiteraTec cops who search for wrongdoers in literature.... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

An alternate time-line exists in 1985, one in which literature is the most important part of peoples' lives. There are John Milton conferences, an audience participation of Richard III (reminiscent of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show") and LiteraTec cops who search for wrongdoers in literature. Into this group works our intrepid hero, Thursday Next, a veteran of the Crimean War (it's still going on) and someone with first-hand knowledge of Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre. There is also the bureaucracy of the oligarchy called The Goliath Corporation and propaganda coming from The Toad News. Much traveling and investigation ensures, and the reader is caught up in a logical, literary time-line.

Characters edit see section history

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Quotes edit see section history

  • “If you expect me to believe that a lawyer wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I must be dafter than I look.”
    Thursday Next
  • “After all, the verses of Byron, Keats or Poe are real whether they are in bootleg form or not. You can still read them for the same effect.”
    Thursday Next
  • “I consider myself a spiritual man, Miss Next, although I am not religious. By spiritual I merely mean that I feel I have good in my soul and am inclined to follow the correct course of action given a prescribed set of circumstances.”
    Bowden Cable
  • “Each one of these little fellows has enough new genetic sequencing to make the code embedded in your pet dodo look like a note to the milkman!”
    Mycroft Next
  • “Goodness is weakness, pleasantness is poisonous, serenity is mediocrity and kindness is for losers.”
    Acheron Hades
  • “Don't ever call me mad, Mycroft. I'm not mad, I'm just well, differently moraled, that's all.”
    Acheron Hades
  • “This is my sister, Thursday. She’s SpecOps and consequently doesn’t have a sense of humor, a boyfriend or a life.”
    Joffy Next
  • “How are you? I'm sorry I had to do what I did but you know how desperate we psychopaths get.”
    Acheron Hades
  • “Religion isn’t the cause of wars, it’s the excuse.”
  • “Ordinary adults don’t like children to speak of things that are denied them by their own gray minds.”
    Thursday Next
  • “if only scientists stopped to think about the possible effects of their discoveries, the planet would be a much safer place for all of us”
  • “we first encountered each other in Yorkshire when my mind was young and the barrier between reality and make believe had not yet hardened into the shell that cocoons us in adult life.”
    Thursday Next
  • “The words peeled off the page and into my imagination as she spoke. In those days I was young and all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind. Memories of nursery stories were there along with other rubbish and when they recurred maturing youth added to them a vigar and vividness beyond what childhood could give.”
    Thursday Next
  • “Words are like leaves, like people really, they are fond of their own society”
  • “And little Thursday here made so much noise during sex that we had to put her in the garden shed whenever her boyfriends stayed the night.”
    Joffy Next
  • “"Shit.""That's Mr. Schitt to you."”
    Thursday Next and Jack Schitt
Show all 16 quotes from this book

Setting & Locations edit see section history

Organizations edit see section history

  • SpecOps: Special Operations, government-run agencies/groups for various needs: Literature is SpecOps - 13. SpecOps - 1 is the equivalent of Internal Affairs. SpecOps - 27 is the highest number mentioned.
  • Goliath Corporation: A worldwide EVERYTHING retailer who have become deeply involved in the never-ending Crimean conflict.
  • ChronoGuard: Time Traveling SpecOps Division (SO-12).

First Sentence edit see section history

My father had a face that could stop a clock.

Table of Contents edit see section history

1. A Woman named Thursday Next
2. Gad's Hill
3. Back at My Desk
4. Acheron Hades
5. Search for the Guilty, Punish the Innocent
6. Jane Eyre: A Short Excursion into the Novel
7. The Goliath Corporation
8. Airship to Swindon
9. The Next family
10. The Finis Hotel, Swindon
11. Polly flashes upon the Inward Eye
12. SpecOps 27: The Literary Detectives
13. The Church at Capel-y-ffin
14. Lunch with Bowden
15. Hello & Goodbye, Mr. Quaverley
16. Sturmey Archer & Felix7
17. SpecOps 17: Suckers & Biters
18. Landen again
19. The very Irrev. Joffy Next
20. Dr Runcible Spoon
21. Hades & Goliath
22. The waiting game
23. The drop
24. Martin Chuzzlewit is reprieved
25. Time Enough for Contemplation
26. The Earthcrossers
27. Hades finds another manuscript
28. Haworth House
29. Jane Eyre
30. A groundswell of popular feeling
31. The People's Republic of Wales
32. Thornfield Hall
33. The book is written
34. Nearly the end of their book
35. Nearly the end of our book
36. Married

Glossary edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

This is book 1 of 7 in Thursday Next. (standard series)

Followed by Lost in a Good Book.

This book is in Books about books. (community list)
This is book 82 of 99 in National Public Radio's Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy. (authoritative list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Jasper Fforde (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Country: United Kingdom
Publication Date: July 19, 2001
ISBN: 0340820470
Page Count: 400

Awards edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: PR6106.F67 E97
  • Dewey: 823.92

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Reading Level: Adults

Possibly also some young adults

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • Lost in a Good Book
  • The Big Over Easy
  • The Fourth Bear
  • Inkheart
  • Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
  • Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

Books That Influenced This Book edit see section history

   
  • Jane Eyre
  • Martin Chuzzlewit
  • Richard III
  • William Wordsworth: The Major Works

Books Influenced by This Book edit see section history

   
  • Regarding Ducks and Universes

Books Cited by This Book edit see section history

   
  • Jane Eyre
  • Martin Chuzzlewit
  • Richard III

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