Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

This came to my attention when I was recently browsing Amazon. Then I saw the review in the Globe & Mail recently. Now I'm very much interested in the novel. It's to be published in September/October, and coming in at over 800 pages, it's quite the size and scope for a first time novelist. If the novel takes off as expected, Clarke is expected to rise to stature of J.K Rowling. The comparisons to Rowling has already started. Clarke writes of two 'practical' magicians -- the young Jonathan Strange and the reclusive Mr. Norrell, living in 19th century England, who are persuaded by the government to help in its war against Napoleon. Their partnership eventually turns to rivalry -- the young and impetuous, pitted against the old and conservative. The magical world is replete with a magician-king, enchanted mirrors, faeries; phantom seahorses rescuing ships, Neapolitan zombies and an armada made of rain; -- the genre however, is a more than just fantasy. Clarke apparently writes with a precise use of the English language. Her novel apparently, can be as easily compared with the works of Jane Austen as it can with Rowling. Intriguing.