The Eyre Affair
In an alternative 1985 where literature is taken very seriously, literary detective Thursday Next must track down a criminal mastermind who has kidnapped Jane Eyre from the pages of the novel itself.
Where The Eyre Affair keeps showing up
Three of our editors' lists feature this novel.
What you might want to know about The Eyre Affair
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
First Thursday Next novel. In an alt-1985 Britain where the Crimean War still drags on and people argue about Shakespeare in pubs, literary detective Thursday Next chases the master criminal Acheron Hades into the manuscript of Jane Eyre.
Jasper Fforde's main Thursday Next series has eight books: The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, First Among Sequels, One of Our Thursdays Is Missing, The Woman Who Died a Lot, and the planned Dark Reading Matter.
In tone and humor, yes. Both are absurdist British comic fantasy. The Eyre Affair specifically targets literary classics rather than fantasy tropes. Many readers enjoy both Jasper Fforde and Terry Pratchett.
The Eyre Affair was written by Jasper Fforde, published in 2001 by Thorndike Press.
The Eyre Affair is 380 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Eyre Affair takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
The Eyre Affair is a standalone novel by Jasper Fforde, not part of a series.
The Eyre Affair is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
