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Thursday Next #1-3
The Thursday Next Chronicles
Three funny and fantastical novels following the adventures of Swindon's favourite literary detective, Thursday Next: THE EYRE AFFAIR, LOST IN A GOOD BOOK and THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS.
1128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
117 people are currently reading
722 people want to read
About the author
Jasper Fforde
52 books13.1k followersFforde began his career in the film industry, and for nineteen years held a variety of posts on such movies as Goldeneye, The Mask of Zorro and Entrapment. Secretly harbouring a desire to tell his own stories rather than help other people tell their's, Jasper started writing in 1988, and spent eleven years secretly writing novel after novel as he strove to find a style of his own that was a no-mans-land somewhere between the warring factions of Literary and Absurd.
After receiving 76 rejection letters from publishers, Jasper's first novel The Eyre Affair was taken on by Hodder & Stoughton and published in July 2001. Set in 1985 in a world that is similar to our own, but with a few crucial - and bizarre - differences (Wales is a socialist republic, the Crimean War is still ongoing and the most popular pets are home-cloned dodos), The Eyre Affair introduces literary detective named 'Thursday Next'. Thursday's job includes spotting forgeries of Shakespeare's lost plays, mending holes in narrative plot lines, and rescuing characters who have been kidnapped from literary masterpieces.
Luckily for Jasper, the novel garnered dozens of effusive reviews, and received high praise from the press, from booksellers and readers throughout the UK. In the US The Eyre Affair was also an instant hit, entering the New York Times Bestseller List in its first week of publication.
Since then, Jasper has added another six to the Thursday Next series and has also begun a second series that he calls 'Nursery Crime', featuring Jack Spratt of The Nursery Crime Division. In the first book, 'The Big Over Easy', Humpty Dumpty is the victim in a whodunnit, and in the second, 'The Fourth Bear', the Three Bear's connection to Goldilocks disappearance can finally be revealed.
In January 2010 Fforde published 'Shades of Grey', in which a fragmented society struggle to survive in a colour-obsessed post-apocalyptic landscape.
His latest series is for Young Adults and include 'The Last Dragonslayer' (2010), 'Song of the Quarkbeast' (2011) and 'The Eye of Zoltar' (2013). All the books centre around Jennifer Strange, who manages a company of magicians named 'Kazam', and her attempts to keep the noble arts from the clutches of big business and property tycoons.
Jasper's 14th Book, 'Early Riser', a thriller set in a world in which humans have always hibernated, is due out in the UK in August 2018, and in the US in 2019.
Fforde failed his Welsh Nationality Test by erroneously identifying Gavin Henson as a TV chef, but continues to live and work in his adopted nation despite this setback. He has a Welsh wife, two welsh daughters and a welsh dog, who is mad but not because he's Welsh. He has a passion for movies, photographs, and aviation. (Jasper, not the dog)
Series:
* Thursday Next
* Nursery Crime
* Shades of Grey
After receiving 76 rejection letters from publishers, Jasper's first novel The Eyre Affair was taken on by Hodder & Stoughton and published in July 2001. Set in 1985 in a world that is similar to our own, but with a few crucial - and bizarre - differences (Wales is a socialist republic, the Crimean War is still ongoing and the most popular pets are home-cloned dodos), The Eyre Affair introduces literary detective named 'Thursday Next'. Thursday's job includes spotting forgeries of Shakespeare's lost plays, mending holes in narrative plot lines, and rescuing characters who have been kidnapped from literary masterpieces.
Luckily for Jasper, the novel garnered dozens of effusive reviews, and received high praise from the press, from booksellers and readers throughout the UK. In the US The Eyre Affair was also an instant hit, entering the New York Times Bestseller List in its first week of publication.
Since then, Jasper has added another six to the Thursday Next series and has also begun a second series that he calls 'Nursery Crime', featuring Jack Spratt of The Nursery Crime Division. In the first book, 'The Big Over Easy', Humpty Dumpty is the victim in a whodunnit, and in the second, 'The Fourth Bear', the Three Bear's connection to Goldilocks disappearance can finally be revealed.
In January 2010 Fforde published 'Shades of Grey', in which a fragmented society struggle to survive in a colour-obsessed post-apocalyptic landscape.
His latest series is for Young Adults and include 'The Last Dragonslayer' (2010), 'Song of the Quarkbeast' (2011) and 'The Eye of Zoltar' (2013). All the books centre around Jennifer Strange, who manages a company of magicians named 'Kazam', and her attempts to keep the noble arts from the clutches of big business and property tycoons.
Jasper's 14th Book, 'Early Riser', a thriller set in a world in which humans have always hibernated, is due out in the UK in August 2018, and in the US in 2019.
Fforde failed his Welsh Nationality Test by erroneously identifying Gavin Henson as a TV chef, but continues to live and work in his adopted nation despite this setback. He has a Welsh wife, two welsh daughters and a welsh dog, who is mad but not because he's Welsh. He has a passion for movies, photographs, and aviation. (Jasper, not the dog)
Series:
* Thursday Next
* Nursery Crime
* Shades of Grey
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 30, 2020
A real enjoyable bit of fantasy.
June 16, 2022
Husby just finished the collection, instructed me to rate it five stars and to buy him book four.
September 10, 2011
Very imaginative, like nothing I've read before. The heroine drops into different literary works and has policing relationships with the characters.
June 14, 2023
Massive weirdness. May need to cogitate for a while before deciding on whether to continue with others in the series.
February 25, 2024
What a fascinating and bizarre read.
May 25, 2020
An easy read, that is silly in parts but does draw you into a familiar literary world in an unfamiliar but enjoyable way. I am looking forward to reading the remainder of the series!
August 8, 2015
This contains the first 3 Thursday next books. The Eyre affair is brilliant. Thursday Next is a lowly Special Ops agent tracking down errors in literature, and her adventures with the evil Acheron Hades in and out of Jane Eyre form the basis of the story. Thursday is a delightful character, and has lots of interesting friends with fascinating jobs. The whole book is wildly imaginative, and great fun. It helps to have read some of the books that figure in the series, although it isn't essential. Lost in a Good Book continues the story. Thursday is now married, but being troubled by Acheron Hades sister, who is out for revenge. She learns to travel from one book to another and is taken on as an apprentice by Miss Havisham as a Jursfiction agent. The evil Goliath Corporation is still around to complicate matters. Sadly her husband has been eliminated by a corrupt time travelling agent, and she is now pregnant and battling to get him reinstated. In The well of Lost Plots, Thursday is now hiding out in an obscure crime novel, but her adventures continue apace as she perfects her book travelling skills, and finds her way round the enormous library where all the books are held and meets many of the characters who live there. There are still dastardly plots in the fictional world for her to thwart, so the excitement continues.
August 1, 2012
Thursday Next is a literary detective in Swindon in 1985, in a world similar but very different to our own. She teams up with various literary characters to thwart various evil plans. These are the first three of several books, which are clever and witty and great fun to read.
November 8, 2012
I love the way Jasper Fforde uses the english language! The action was fast paced and interesting. One problem for me was that I know next to nothing about Jane Austen, somehow she was skipped over in my school education, so many of the references were lost on me.
July 25, 2023
Very entertaining world the author has created where books and their characters have a life in an alternate universe which can be crossed over into by a real-world character, Thursday Next, who keeps the books "alive" in the real world by fixing things that go wrong in the book world.
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May 25, 2015tedious and contrived - and heading to the abandoned pile having read less than half!
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January 1, 2016The Thursday Next books are a must...I seem to have gotten behind :-(
January 21, 2025
loved these, so funny, i love clever humour and as a grammar/literature nerd, these really tickled me
April 5, 2017
I read only "The Eyre Affair", which has the same cover as this edition. A brilliantly clever and very different book. Will keep you on your toes throughout.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews