The Eyre Affair

Jasper Fforde

Contents

The Eyre Affair

Lost in a Good Book

The Well of Lost Plots

Something Rotten

First Among Sequels

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

The Eyre Affair

A Viking Book / published by arrangement with the author

This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

For information address:

The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

ISBN: 978-1-1011-5851-7

A VIKING BOOK®

Viking Books first published by The Viking Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

VIKING and the “Viking Ship” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

Electronic edition: July, 2004

For my father
John Standish Fforde
1920–2000

Who never knew I was to be published but
would have been most proud nonetheless
—and not a little surprised.

Contents

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

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

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

1.
A Woman Named Thursday Next

. . . The Special Operations Network was instigated to handle policing duties considered either too unusual or too specialized to be tackled by the regular force. There were thirty departments in all, starting at the more mundane Neighborly Disputes (SO-30) and going onto Literary Detectives (SO-27) and Art Crime (SO-24). Anything below SO-20 was restricted information, although it was common knowledge that the ChronoGuard was SO-12 and Antiterrorism SO-9. It is rumored that SO-1 was the department that polices the SpecOps themselves. Quite what the others do is anyone’s guess. What is known is that the individual operatives themselves are mostly ex-military or ex-police and slightly unbalanced. “If you want to be a SpecOp,” the saying goes, “act kinda weird . . .”