Strange in the Darkness, and they cannot move more than a certain distance from each other. Upon the gentleman with thistle-down hair's death, Arabella comes through the mirror in Padua, where Flora is waiting for her upon instruction of Strange. Childermass informs The Learned Society of York Magicians that their contract is void, and they can study magic again. He shows the now-restored Vinculus as proof that John Uskglass's book of magic remains, tattooed upon his body. Two months later, Strange has a conversation with Arabella, who is still living in Padua. He explains that he and Norrell are studying magic together and intend to learn to remove the Darkness they are both trapped in, but will adventure into other worlds in the meantime. Neither wishes to take Arabella to Faerie again, so he instead promises to return to her when he has dispelled the darkness and tells her not to be a widow till then, which she agrees to. Characters Gilbert Norrell: England's first "practical magician" in centuries. He keeps a large collection of "books of magic", which he has spent years purchasing to keep out of the hands of others, in his library at Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire. Jonathan Strange: a young gentleman who has recently inherited his father's property in Shropshire, who becomes England's second magician and Mr Norrell's pupil. He marries Arabella Woodhope. Stephen Black: Sir Walter Pole's butler and the head servant of the Pole household. He is of African descent, born to a woman enslaved on Sir Walter's grandfather's estate in Jamaica. He catches the attention of the gentleman with thistle-down hair. The gentleman with thistle-down hair: a powerful fairy whom Mr Norrell first summons to revive Lady Pole. He is the ruler of several Kingdoms in Faerie, including Lost-Hope, where he hosts balls each night. Composition and publication Clarke first developed the idea for Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell during a year spent teaching English in Bilbao, Spain: "I had a kind of waking dream ... about a man in 18th-century clothes in a place rather like Venice, talking to some English tourists. And I felt strongly that he had some sort of magical background – he'd been dabbling in magic, and something had gone badly wrong." She had also recently re-read J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and afterwards was inspired to "trying writing a novel of magic and