“It is certainly very aggravating,” remarked Lascelles with all the calm in the world, “and after he swore to Sir Walter that he had given up magic when his wife died.”

“Oh! We might all die – half of London might be swept away, but Strange will always do magic – he cannot help himself. He is too much a magician ever to stop now. And the magic that he will do is evil – and I do not know how I shall prevent him!”

“Pray, calm yourself, Mr Norrell,” said Lascelles, “I am sure you will soon think of something.”

“When is his book to be published?”

“Murray’s advertisements say that the first volume will appear in August.”

“The first volume!”

“Oh, yes! Did you not know? It will be a three-volume work. The first volume lays before the public the complete history of English magic. The second volume furnishes them with a precise understanding of its nature and the third provides the foundation for its future practice.”

Mr Norrell groaned aloud, bowed his head and hid his face in his hands.

“Of course,” said Lascelles thoughtfully, “as mischievous as the text undoubtedly will be, what I find even more alarming are the engravings …”

“Engravings?” cried Mr Norrell, aghast. “What engravings are these?”

“Oh,” said Lascelles, “Strange has discovered some emigrant or other who has studied under all the best masters of Italy, France and Spain and he is paying this man a most extravagant amount of money to make the engravings.”

“But what are they of? What is the subject?”

“What indeed?” said Lascelles with a yawn. “I have not the least idea.” He took up The Famulus again and began to read silently to himself.

Mr Norrell sat for some time deep in thought, chewing at his fingernails. By and by he rang the bell and sent for Childermass.

East of the City of London lies the suburb of Spitalfields, famed far and wide as a place where wonderful silks are made. There is not now, nor ever will be, silk produced any where else in England of so fine a quality as Spitalfields silk. In the past good houses were built to accommodate the silk merchants, master-weavers and dyers who prospered from the trade. But, though the silk that comes out of the weavers’ attics nowadays is every bit as remarkable as ever it was, Spitalfields itself is much fallen off. Its houses have grown dirty and shabby. The wealthy merchants have moved to Islington, Clerkenwell and (if they are very wealthy indeed) to the parish of Mary-le-bone in the west. Today Spitalfields is inhabited by the low and the poor and is much plagued with small boys, thieves and other persons inimicable to the peace of the citizens.

On a particularly gloomy day when a cold, grey rain fell in the dirty streets and pooled in the mud, a carriage came down Elder-street in Spitalfields and stopped at a tall, thin house. The coachman and footman belonging to this carriage wore deep mourning. The footman jumped down from the box, put up a black umbrella and held it up as he opened the door for Jonathan Strange to get out.