The Eyre Affair (2001)

The Eyre Affair is the debut novel by English author Jasper Fforde, published by Hodder and Stoughton in 2001. It takes place in an alternative 1985, where literary detective Thursday Next pursues a master criminal through the world of Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel Jane Eyre. Fforde had received 76 rejections for earlier works before being accepted by a publisher. Critical reception of this novel was generally positive, remarking on its originality.

Plot summary

In a parallel universe, England and Imperial Russia have fought the Crimean War for more than a century; although now a republic (with entertainer George Formby as its president), England still also has a parliamentary government, although heavily influenced by the Goliath Corporation (a powerful weapon-producing company with questionable morals); and Wales is a separate, socialist nation. The book's fictional version of Jane Eyre ends with Jane accompanying her cousin, St. John Rivers, to India in order to help him with his missionary work. Society publicly debates literary questions (especially the question of Shakespearean authorship), sometimes inspiring gang wars and murder. Regular law enforcement agencies still exist, alongside new specialized agencies under the single organization SpecOps (Special Operations). The more than 20 branches include SpecOps 12, the Chronoguard, who police all events related to time travel, and SpecOps 27, the Literary Detectives, or "LiteraTecs", who deal with all literature-related crimes.

The Crimean War is a cold conflict with both sides at a stalemate but too stubborn to call for peace. A peace movement in Britain is gaining popularity. Meanwhile, Goliath has been contracted to create a plasma rifle codenamed "STONK" to overpower the Russians. The weapon should be capable of destroying a tank with a single blast. Goliath promises that STONK will soon be standard issue to the British military.

The plot revolves around Thursday Next, a single, thirty-six-year-old woman who is a veteran of the Crimean War and a literary detective who lives in London with her pet dodo Pickwick. (Dodos have been recreated, as have Neanderthals, due to advanced genetic engineering technology on this alternate Earth). She is privately against the continuation of the war, as her brother was killed in action and her then fiancé Landen Parke-Laine lost a leg in combat. The trauma of the war led to the end of her relationship with Parke-Laine several years prior.

As the story begins, Thursday is promoted to assist in the capture of a wanted terrorist, Acheron Hades, her former university professor who has become a mysterious criminal mastermind. Thursday is the only living person who can recognize him, and nearly captures him during a stakeout, but Hades possesses several superhuman abilities, such as mental manipulation and extreme durability, and uses those powers to withstand her gunfire. He evades capture and kills Thursday's entire team. During the capture attempt she is shot, but a copy of Jane Eyre stops Hades's bullet. A mysterious stranger aids her until the paramedics arrive, leaving behind a handkerchief monogrammed with the letters "E.F.R." and a 19th-century style jacket. Next recognizes these items as belonging to Edward Fairfax Rochester, a fictional character from Jane Eyre. During a flashback to her childhood, Thursday remembers a seemingly supernatural event, whereby she was able to physically enter the world of the novel and briefly became acquainted with Rochester.

While recovering in hospital, she learns that, after fleeing the scene, Hades was seemingly killed in a car accident. She also meets a time-traveling future version of herself, who warns her that Hades survived the accident, and instructs her to take a LiteraTec job in her home town of Swindon. She takes the job, and while visiting her family there, she discovers that her brilliant Uncle Mycroft and Aunt Polly have created the Prose Portal, a device that allows people to enter works of fiction. At home, she renews an acquaintance with her ex-fiancé Parke-Laine. She also meets, and is forced to work with, a high-ranking Goliath operative named Jack Schitt, who is similarly investigating Hades.

Hades, meanwhile, steals the original manuscript of Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit. He also kidnaps Mycroft, Polly, and the Prose Portal in order to blackmail the literary world; any changes made to the plot of a novel's original manuscript will change all other copies. To demonstrate his demands are serious, Hades kills Mr Quaverley, a minor character from the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit. When his demands are not met, he stages a theft of the original manuscript of Jane Eyre and kidnaps Jane for another ransom demand. This causes the text of all copies of the Jane Eyre novel to abruptly end at the moment of Jane's kidnapping, roughly halfway through the book.