She rarely speaks, and her attempts to communicate her situation are confounded by magic.

Emma (now Lady Pole) lapses into lassitude. Meanwhile, the gentleman with thistle-down hair takes a liking to Stephen Black, Sir Walter's butler, and promises to make him a king. While travelling, Vinculus later meets Jonathan Strange, a young gentleman of property from Shropshire, and recites the same prophecy, which prompts Strange to become a magician. While living in London, Mr Norrell encounters Vinculus, a street-magician, who relates a prophecy about a nameless slave and two magicians in England, but Norrell dismisses it. After news spreads of Emma's resurrection and happy marriage to Sir Walter, magic becomes seen as respectable and Mr Norrell uses his magic to aid the government in their ongoing war against Napoleon. He summons a fairy-'the gentleman with thistle-down hair' -who strikes a bargain with Mr Norrell to restore Emma: half of her life will be spent with the fairy. To ingratiate himself, Mr Norrell attempts to recall Sir Walter's fiancée, Emma Wintertowne, from the dead. He enters society with the help of two gentlemen about town, the superficial Christopher Drawlight and the shrewd Henry Lascelles, and meets a Cabinet Minister, Sir Walter Pole. Segundus's article generates considerable interest in Mr Norrell, who moves to London to revive practical English magic. John Childermass, Mr Norrell's servant, convinces a member of the group, John Segundus, to write about the event for the London newspapers.

Norrell proves his skill as a magician by making the statues in York Cathedral speak. The group is stunned to learn of a 'practical magician', Mr Gilbert Norrell, who owns a large collection of 'books of magic', which he has spent years purchasing to keep them out of the hands of others. The novel opens in 1806 in northern England with The Learned Society of York Magicians, whose members are 'theoretical magicians' who believe that magic died out several hundred years earlier. | quote = He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could bear to listen to him. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

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