About the Book
Great Britain circa 1985: time travel is routine, cloning is a reality
(dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken
very, very seriously. Baconians are trying to convince the world that
Francis Bacon really wrote Shakespeare, there are riots between the
Surrealists and Impressionists, and thousands of men are named John
Milton, an homage to the real Milton and a very confusing situation for
the police. Amidst all this, Acheron Hades, Third Most Wanted Man In
the World, steals the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit and
kills a minor character, who then disappears from every volume of the
novel ever printed! But that's just a prelude...
Hades' real target is the beloved Jane Eyre, and it's not long before
he plucks her from the pages of Bronte's novel. Enter Thursday Next.
She's the Special Operative's renowned literary detective, and she
drives a Porsche. With the help of her uncle Mycroft's Prose Portal,
Thursday enters the novel to rescue Jane Eyre from this heinous act of
literary homicide. It's tricky business, all these interlopers running
about Thornfield, and deceptions run rampant as their paths cross with
Jane, Rochester, and Miss Fairfax. Can Thursday save Jane Eyre and
Bronte's masterpiece? And what of the Crimean War? Will it ever end?
And what about those annoying black holes that pop up now and again,
sucking things into time-space voids.
