The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna ClarkeBloomsbury, 2006

This is a beautifully designed volume: the pink flowers on the otherwise dark cover, the wine-colored endpapers, the elegant type, the rough edges of the pages. The stories it contains are clever and pleasing and good for quiet autumn or winter evenings: “On Lickerish Hill,” (a reworking of the Tom Tit Tot story) and “Mrs. Mabb” read like typical fairy tales, while other stories in the book are more reminiscent of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Some, like the title story, share characters with the novel, while others (like “Mr Simonelli or the Fairy Widower”) just share an aesthetic, or inhabit the same world, an England in which the realm of Faerie is just through the woods, or just around the corner.