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121-623: Thursday is the daughter of Wednesday Next and Colonel Next , a former agent with Special Operations Network department 12 (SO-12), known as the Chronoguard . She has two brothers, Anton and Joffy . Anton , however, was killed in the Crimean War . In the novel's parallel universe , England is a republic , with George Formby as its first president , elected following the success of Operation Sea Lion (the mooted Nazi invasion of Great Britain), occupation, and liberation. There

242-508: A Good Book , The Well of Lost Plots and Something Rotten . Her father, Colonel Next, is a rogue member of the ChronoGuard (SpecOps 12), a temporal policing agency, and officially does not exist, having been eradicated by his former bosses (using the simple but effective method of a timely knock on the door just before his conception; despite this, his children and grandchild still exist, likely due to Thursday's son Friday Next being

363-429: A book's plot, however, one must be careful to avoid jumping directly into an area where the plot is occurring, although most bookjumps send the jumper to a place directly outside of the narrative area. A bookjump is characterized by a "fade out" of the character bookjumping. If a character cannot or does not wish to bookjump, they will have to utilize a method of private transportation. The only such transportation known

484-473: A far lesser role within Goliath and makes only a brief appearance. His name is a pun on ' jack shit ', meaning 'nothing'. A member of SpecOps 12, the ChronoGuard, Filbert dated Thursday until he experienced a mishap in the timestream and was too embarrassed to tell her. Thursday runs into him again while both are working for SpecOps 5 in pursuit of Acheron Hades. When introduced to "Snood," Thursday assumes he

605-491: A fit of depression, considered the possibility of self-sacrifice/ suicide , admitting that " battling the undead was never a bowl of cherries ," he was in fact trying to trick both Thursday and a Supreme Evil Being. In Something Rotten he offers to take Thursday's place in the afterworld when she is about to die, now knowing that his wife is an assassin, but Thursday persuades him to stay for the sake of their daughter Betty. Ultimately, his wife gives her life to save Thursday. He

726-417: A given talent to all fictional characters, the bookjumping ability is a rarity in those from outside BookWorld. Bookjumping involves "reading" yourself into a book, appearing in the storyline at the point read. Such natural talent or ability may be approved in some manner by teaching "quality" bookjumping, and bookjumping may be possible without reading the text aloud. In order to avoid potentially destroying

847-536: A large weapon, supposedly a broadsword, and a fifty-pound note was found in his hand, showing he was blackmailing the killer. Jack has his own problems at home when his mother calls him to sell a painting of a cow. Jack next interviews Randolph Spongg. Humpty had been investing in their failing businesses in hope of a breakthrough, which never came. The interview take place in Spongg's strange house, where doors lead nowhere, some rooms revolve around and go-kart races inside

968-459: A librarian, but is in fact an assassin. "Stoker" is a reference to Bram Stoker , author of Dracula ; "Spike" may be a reference to the shape of the wooden stakes that he uses in his line of work. Spike is almost on his own against the forces of darkness, yet is arguably the cheeriest person seen in the books: he is jocular, easy-going and is rarely serious or distressed in his work. He loses his cool only rarely; and although he once, seemingly in

1089-615: A man and ruling as God Emperor of the Universe. David "Pinky" Perkins and Akrid Snell were the lead characters in a set of detective novels and both worked as JurisFiction agents. Perkins headed up the Grammasite Research facility, in a land appropriated from an unpublished fantasy novel ( The Sword of the Zenobians ), which is populated by many fictional creatures who were unable to live safely within their own novels. He

1210-403: A man to shoot him, Randolph Spongg and Lola Vavoom thought they killed him with a car bomb. But the real killer was Dr. Quatt, who injected him with the monster when he was having his appointments with her. Humpty's wife killed herself because she thought she killed him. Wee Willie Winkie saw Humpty hatch and knew it was her and blackmailed her. She made the monster follow her, and when she met him,

1331-524: A manufacturer of bicycle gears . Hugely intelligent and equally immoral (believes in doing what is morally evil, as opposed to amorality , which would mean not believing in a moral good or evil), Acheron Hades started out as a lecturer in English, teaching, among others, Thursday Next, before he turned to a life of crime. Believed by some to be only half-human, the other half being allegedly demonic or vampiric in nature (he casts no shadow), Acheron possesses

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1452-519: A much larger role in Lost in a Good Book , where he is hired by Goliath to eradicate Landen Parke-Laine. He holds a strong grudge against Thursday Next, and refuses to honor his part of the deal between her and Goliath as revenge for "what she did to him." This action has yet to occur in Thursday's timeline. Always clad in blue gingham, 108-year-old Gran Next claims not to be able to die until she's read

1573-465: A number of mysterious powers (as, indeed, do most of his siblings). He cannot be photographed or recorded in any way, and has shown the ability to know when his name is uttered within a considerable distance (a radius of 1000 yards, and possible further), hence his name is not often spoken aloud (compare Lord Voldemort , or The Chandrian ). He has shown an immunity to the effects of most weapons, his only confirmed vulnerability being to silver. Said to have

1694-456: A number, Mary says it out loud. This was so amazing that Solomon decided to put it on display for everyone in Reading. When an inspector is put in charge of watching Spratt and the others, Humpty's car, a Ford Zephyr , is found. As the car is about to be taken away, Jack realises that the front headlight has been removed and there is a wire feeding through it. He orders everyone to run away and

1815-607: A rogue member of the Chronoguard, acting on behalf of the Goliath Corporation, who wish to blackmail Thursday into returning their operative Jack Schitt. He then appears only in Thursday's memories until reactualised during Something Rotten . His name is one of Fforde's trademark puns: in the British edition of the board game Monopoly , Park Lane is the second-to-last street on the board and consequently one of

1936-456: A short time after Easter, and no one can remember the last sunny day. Mary Mary, a detective sergeant from Basingstoke , is being transferred to Reading, Berkshire . She hopes to be paired up with Detective Chief Inspector Friedland Chymes, a member of the Detective's Guild with multiple appearances in the fictional magazine Amazing Crime Stories , but instead is paired up with Jack Spratt at

2057-430: A slightly fussy, nervous edge to him, Bowden is intelligent and, at times, quite sly and cunning. He was responsible for thwarting the plans of Jack Schitt and the Goliath Corporation when he substituted a copy of Edgar Allan Poe 's poem " The Raven " in place of the weapons manual that Schitt thought he was accessing. He shares his name with the braking cable on bicycles . Another character is called Sturmey Archer , also

2178-539: A suspect instead. He is revealed to have been hiding for his own safety with the serving girl he ravishes, with whom he is actually in love. They and Quasimodo help Thursday foil Harris Tweed and his cohorts, and Potternews is finally granted an Internal Plot Readjustment to allow Vernham and his lover to marry happily. His name presumably derives from the Hampshire village of Vernham Dean . A reclusive septuagenarian author of trashy romances, Farquitt began writing in

2299-444: A villain in Lost in a Good Book . Aornis Hades is a mnemonomorph, a person who can alter memories at will; she can also apparently alter entropy , a concept of science. The general law of entropy, as presented in the book, states that reactions can only become more chaotic; a plate can fall to the ground and shatter, but it cannot reassemble. Aornis lowers entropy, causing extremely large-scale and bizarre coincidences to occur. She held

2420-416: A whodunit. Although I was wrong to say Spratt is untroubled. As a conflation of three nursery rhyme Jacks, he has several 'issues' to deal with, including the need for a fat-free diet and a strong compulsion to kill giants." Guttridge concluded his review saying simply, "Comic genius". Reviewing the audiobook edition, read by Simon Prebble , Publishers Weekly found that, "Despite its many virtues, this

2541-445: Is a Neanderthal rights movement, given the resurrection of this kindred branch of human evolution . The duck is extinct in this universe. Computer and aviation technology are far behind our own timeline, with the transistor having never been invented (computers are still massive and run on vacuum tubes) and research into the jet engine unfunded as propeller and dirigible technology are viewed as 'good enough'. The Goliath Corporation

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2662-524: Is a detective novel featuring Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his sergeant, Mary Mary, (listed as Mary Jones in WOLP ) who swaps with Thursday. Spratt and Mary get their own Fforde series, The Nursery Crime Division books, and appear in The Big Over Easy and The Fourth Bear featuring crimes against characters in classic children's literature. Thursday is in her mid-thirties at the start of

2783-547: Is a fictitious and complex environment that acts as a "behind-the-scenes" area of books. The BookWorld is most likely "created" by what is known as the Great Panjandrum, a person/thing that is thought to be of the highest of authority, yet is never present, acting as a god of sorts to the BookWorld. As the word panjandrum means someone in high authority, this reaffirms this possibility. Consisting of 52 levels total,

2904-574: Is a megalithic company that appears to make many of the goods in this alternate world and also acts as a de facto shadow government, being able to take over important police investigations. In the world of Thursday Next, literature is a much more popular medium than in our world, and Thursday is a member of SO-27, the Literary Detectives or LiteraTecs. Her work is centered on Swindon , where she, her husband, infant, and mother live. The importance that literature has in this alternate England

3025-550: Is a minister for the Global Standard Deity, which aims to represent all of the others equally and without prejudice, with the laudable aim of attempting to prevent religious conflict. Cheerful, frequently irreverent almost but (usually) not quite to the point of being irritating and laid-back, he nevertheless has an extremely caring nature and a great deal of wisdom, which serves him well in his chosen vocation. He generally calls Thursday 'Doofus' and used to slap her on

3146-401: Is a nursery rhyme character". He added, "Now humour is notoriously subjective […]. And, indeed, when Fforde wrote the first version of this novel in 1994 - he called it Who Killed Humpty Dumpty? - it was rejected by every publisher he sent it to. But I love it. The Big Over Easy is great not just because it's very funny (albeit with some excruciating puns) but also because it works properly as

3267-468: Is a reference to Dickens's Pickwick Papers . Head of the Goliath Corporation's internal security service and their Advanced Weapons Division, and thus a man of great power. He showed great interest in Mycroft Next's Prose Portal, hoping to use it to retrieve fictional weaponry, having utterly failed to make the equivalent weapon work in the real world, to the extent that he was willing to work with

3388-451: Is a version 1.2 dodo, and the DNA sequencing wasn't complete until the release of version1.7. Although initially Thursday Next believed Pickwick to be male, she later turned out to be female when she laid an egg. Her noise is represented as "plock plock" in the books. Around Thursday Next a fictional world was created, reflected on several websites of the fictional organisations. The BookWorld

3509-533: Is described as a tall, muscular man with blond dreadlocks and sunglasses. It was once hinted that he suffers from either lycanthropy or vampirism and requires regular "medication"; without it he will sometimes lose control of himself and exhibit wolflike behavior, such as eating live mice. Other members of staff at the Swindon branch of SO-27 , appear from time to time and are notable chiefly because their names are puns on Sea Areas known to UK radio listeners from

3630-482: Is given a large amount of power in the BookWorld, the primary legislative government is the Council of Genres, made up of a representative from every genre in the BookWorld. Ruling upon various issues and creating ordinances to counteract them, there is no official executive of the Council of Genres. Concerning judiciary matters, the Council has no control. Courtroom scenes across the BookWorld are used for this purpose,

3751-415: Is his father and doesn't discover his true identity until he is killed by Hades. Spike works for SO-17 and is the sole agent for that department assigned to the Reading area. He deals with undead paranormals and the capturing of Supreme Evil Beings, and occasionally enlists Thursday Next to assist with his work in exchange for money. Later in the series, he marries a woman named Cindy, who he believes to be

Thursday Next - Misplaced Pages Continue

3872-479: Is mentioned as not really being evil, Lethe, the apparent "white sheep" of the family; another brother, Styx Hades , is shown to be more of a nuisance than really evil, committing pranks and not possessing any actual powers). It is also implied that they have been evil for generations; as Acheron's sister Aornis puts it, "No member of the Hades family has been captured alive for eighty-eight generations." Hades has made

3993-546: Is no United Kingdom , and Wales is the independent "Socialist Republic of Wales". The Crimean War is still being waged in 1985, Russia still has a Czar , and the Whig Party still exists in the House of Commons . In this universe, genetic engineering is advanced, allowing Thursday to have a pet dodo - a rare Version 1.2- Pickwick . Re-engineered mammoths can cause damage to local gardens if in their path, and there

4114-539: Is not immune to other men, it transpires, as she develops an apparent interest in Otto Bismarck when he stays with her for a few days. On the other hand, having no official husband, she is believed by most to have conceived three children outside of wedlock, something that affects her social life. Thursday's husband, Landen is an award-winning novelist whose books include Bad Sofa , Memoirs of A Crimean Veteran and Once Were Scoundrels . He served as an officer in

4235-420: Is often practising his putting in his office and coaxes Thursday to join him for a round of golf; she accepts out of gratitude for his alibi. Hicks has several grown children and by Something Rotten is planning to retire shortly. The name is an allusion to Braxton Hicks contractions near the end of pregnancy. A Japanese literary tourist and member of JurisFiction. In Lost in a Good Book , she gives Thursday

4356-471: Is reflected in the fact that so many people want to change their name to that of famous authors that some must be numbered, by law- e.g. John Milton 432. 'WillSpeak' machines are often to be found in public places, such as railway stations - these contain a mannequin of a Shakespearian character and will quote that character's most famous speeches upon payment. In addition, the line between literature and reality becomes increasingly thin, allowing characters in

4477-489: Is sentenced for her Jane Eyre fiction infraction—twenty years in blue gingham and having to read the ten most boring classics before she can die—she realizes that Gran is herself seventy years in the future. As friends and yet-unborn family members gather, Thursday reads the last paragraph of The Faerie Queene to Gran, who dies peacefully. Gran's long life includes many interesting jobs, such as working in many divisions of SpecOps , spending twenty-four hours as

4598-571: Is stopped around him by Colonel Next, he remains unaffected (this might possibly be why he does not seem to age). He is either very good at guessing or possesses some form of telepathy as he can figure out the personality faults and mental weaknesses of a person within moments. Hades appears as the principal villain of The Eyre Affair . He kidnaps Mycroft Next and steals his Prose Portal, using it to enter stolen original manuscripts of such classic tales as Martin Chuzzlewit and Jane Eyre , with

4719-520: Is that of TransGenre Taxis, a bookjumping taxi service that may be used for a monetary fee. Most unorganized crime takes place in the Well of Lost Plots, due to its lack of crime control in that area. Such common crime includes illegal selling of plot devices, characters, and others. Due to the frequent instability of much of the BookWorld, a public police agency, instated by the Council of Genres (See Government ), uses bookjumping and other devices to keep

4840-460: Is the killer, whose aim was to kill the Jellyman all along. She is about to kill Jack, but Mary knocks her unconscious. The monster runs to her aid, picking her up and running away. Mary tries to kill them, but Jack tells her not to bother. The beanstalk topples over from when Jack tried to cut it down, crushing the monster and Dr. Quatt. The end of the book is the explanation. Scientists take away

4961-703: Is the librarian of the Great Library, although due to redistricting in England since the book in which he appears was written, the Cheshire Cat is now known as the Cat Formerly Known as Cheshire, or Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat. The "engine room" of BookWorld, Text Grand Central uses so-called "storycode engines" to observe changes in books and allow the reader to read books using a complex "imaginotransference system" to supposedly continue

Thursday Next - Misplaced Pages Continue

5082-518: Is the result of the book Caversham Heights featured in The Well of Lost Plots and includes a possible cameo appearance of the author's heroine Thursday Next , thus verifying this claim. The book was the first novel Fforde wrote, however, he failed in its publication. It was massively re-written following the success of the Thursday Next novels. A follow-up, entitled The Fourth Bear ,

5203-420: Is transferred, Humpty Dumpty is discovered dead outside of his residence at Grimm's Road, apparently having fallen off the wall. Jack's Superintendent, Briggs, introduces him to Mary Mary at the crime scene. Jack interviews some possible witnesses, including Wee Willie Winkie , the insomniac neighbor; Ms. Hubbard, the owner of the boarding house where Humpty stayed; and Prometheus, the titan from Greek mythology,

5324-567: The Crimean War (still raging in Fforde's alternate 1985), during which he came into contact with Thursday, with whom he fell in love, and her brother Anton, who became his best friend. During the disastrous battle which became known as the " Charge of the Light-Armoured Brigade ", Anton was killed and Landen lost a leg. During the subsequent inquest, Landen, after much agonizing, admitted that Anton had made an error that had led to

5445-653: The Jane Eyre manuscript from the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth ) is named after Ozymandias , the eponymous subject of Shelley 's 1818 sonnet. The head of JurisFiction. During the events of Lost in a Good Book and The Well of Lost Plots , this position is filled by an unnamed individual who is only ever referred to by his title. He was murdered in the latter, by Libris, weeks from retirement, and replaced by an obedient clone of himself. Following

5566-790: The Local Government Commissions ) the Cheshire Cat is now technically referred to as the Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat, but still generally known by his original appellation. He serves as an über-librarian to the Grand Library, as well as a high-ranking JurisFiction official. His work is especially significant in Something Rotten , where after years of searching he finds Yorrick Kaine's origin—a self-published novel not even in

5687-578: The Shipping Forecast on BBC Radio 4 . These characters include Jim Crometty (named after the Sea Area ' Cromarty '); Sergeant Ross ('Ross'); Finisterre ('Finisterre', which was renamed ' FitzRoy ' in 2002); Fisher (' Fisher '); Helmut Bight (' German Bight '); Malin (' Malin '); Sole (' Sole '); and the Forty brothers, Jeff and Geoff (' Forties '). Strictly speaking, Crometty does not appear in

5808-644: The William Wordsworth poem I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by Acheron Hades during the events of The Eyre Affair . Enjoys tormenting door-to-door salesmen along with Thursday's mother. Mother to Thursday Next and her brothers. She used to work for SpecOps 3 (and claims to still do so on occasion), but has now become something of a homebody, and is generally found there throughout the novels. She loves her husband, despite his eradication, but has occasional suspicions about his fidelity, particularly regarding his dealings with Lady Emma Hamilton . She herself

5929-459: The "spam" messages of BookWorld, frequently appearing in the Well of Lost Plots. News is also put over footnoterphones, which can be turned on and off at will. Newspapers are the second choice for receiving news in BookWorld. The primary newspaper in the BookWorld is called The Word . Specific newsletters, such as Moveable Type , the official newsletter of Jurisfiction , may apply to certain groups of characters. While bookjumping appears to be

6050-520: The 1930s and has little real variation in plot between her novels. Vernham Deane is one of her characters. Because she is the author of the vanity-published At Long Last Lust , origin of Yorrick Kaine, Kaine starts a campaign against all things Danish in an attempt to destroy every remaining copy of his book (Farquitt having been born in Copenhagen) so he cannot be deleted from within. Hamlet claims to have brought her and tens of thousands of her fans to

6171-459: The 28-foot-long strand of hair found in Humpty's bedroom. Solomon shows them into a room with an abnormally large amount of security: a person going in has to wear no shoes in case of being detected. In the centre of the room is a puzzle piece, the sacred gonga, held in unbreakable glass. It has magic powers which he reveals to Jack and Mary by putting them on each side of the room. When Jack thinks of

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6292-541: The BookWorld is provided by footnoterphones and mobilefootnoterphones. Messages from others appear as footnotes in the text, the "number" of a footnoterphone being the chosen character's book, chapter, page number, paragraph, and line in a book. Connection between phones is created by hidden tunnel conduits that are invisible in the book, such tunnels spanning distances between other books and other genres. Connections can be crossed and filtered out using "textual sieves", which filter out all incoming text. Junkfootnoterphones are

6413-401: The BookWorld under control. The central and only crime-preventing force, Jurisfiction has jurisdiction over nearly all areas of the BookWorld. Once having volunteered for Jurisfiction, the applicant then becomes an apprentice to a chosen Jurisfiction agent. All agents are given an essential TravelBook, a necessary item for all situations. Containing needed Jursifiction devices and a link back to

6534-444: The ChronoGuard. Went rogue, leading the ChronoGuard to delete him from history by interrupting his conception; however, due to his skills at time manipulation, still exists and drops in on his family from time to time to assist or pass on advice. By the events of Something Rotten , he has rejoined the ChronoGuard, albeit in a reduced capacity. In the end of First Among Sequels , he's reactualised. Brother of Thursday and Anton Next. He

6655-471: The Crimean War, and Joffy, who is a minister for the Global Standard Deity (GSD). Thursday also has a pet dodo called Pickwick. Although dodos had been extinct for some time, in Fforde's fictional universe they have been reintroduced through cloning , a popular hobby. Pickwick was 12 years old in 1985, when The Eyre Affair was set, and has some unusual characteristics, including missing wings. She

6776-506: The Goliath Corporation within fiction. Thursday was able to escape with the assistance of Miss Havisham and went to live in the Bookworld in order to hide from Goliath. Schitt-Hawse reappeared briefly in Something Rotten , when Thursday visited the CEO of the Goliath Corporation during a board meeting. He is almost invariably accompanied by his henchmen, Mr. Chalk and Mr. Cheese, although by

6897-446: The Great Library acts as a lobby of sorts for the BookWorld and serves as a public gateway onto any book ever created. 26 of the upper levels, organized according to the author's last name, are laid out in a cross shape, with 4 rows of bookcases radiating from a central point. In order to determine whether bookjumping into a book of choice is deemed appropriate or not, the book cover is either green, for "open", or red for "unavailable". At

7018-505: The Great Library as well as other popular works of fiction, the TravelBook also acts as a guide to the BookWorld and is password protected to each individual member. Agents deemed appropriate are also given the password to an unpublished work that acts as a bestiary and a research faculty for BookWorld creatures. (See Creatures .) Upon passing a written exam and practical exam, an apprentice is given full agent status. While Jurisfiction

7139-688: The Library—;and engages Kaine in a Merlin -versus- Madame Mim -esque battle of summoning literary warriors, eventually calling upon the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio to turn Kaine into a real person. Resident cad within Daphne Farquitt's The Squire of High Potternews , Deane is an accomplished JurisFiction agent who in reality is nothing like his character in his novel. He is a potential target in The Well of Lost Plots along with Perkins and Havisham, but his disappearance makes him

7260-540: The Nursery Crime Department, who is most famous for giant killing and for arresting the serial wife killer Bluebeard . Jack himself is living with his second wife, Madeleine, who moonlights as a photographer for certain prestigious events, and their five children: Pandora, Ben, Stevie, Jerome, and Megan. Madeleine is trying to rent the spare room in the house, but without much success. Jack's first wife could only eat fat and soon died. The day after Mary

7381-571: The Ovinator, which encourages cooperation. Others, such as his device for erasing memories (which he has no recollection of ever inventing) serve purely as running gags. He has been hunted by the Goliath Corporation, who wished to use his Prose Portal to retrieve fictional weaponry from the Bookworld to sell in the real world. He retired into the Bookworld, living within the Sherlock Holmes series of books, where he occasionally interfered with

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7502-591: The Superhoop to stop Kaine's interference, but in reality it was only nine fans and Farquitt remains as elusive as ever. Cordelia is an attractive senior SpecOps agent who works in Public Relations . She spends the whole of Lost in a Good Book persistently trying to get Thursday to do press interviews regarding the alterations made to the storyline of Jane Eyre during the events of The Eyre Affair . The younger sister of Acheron Hades, who appeared as

7623-441: The ability to "lie in thought, word, action and appearance" he also possesses formidable powers of deception, including the ability to assume the shape of others and hypnotic persuasive abilities on the "weaker minded" (he is unable to hypnotise Thursday). Another ability that possibly follows in this vein is his ability to pass through glass barriers by making the glass soft and pliable through heated touch; after he withdraws his hand

7744-417: The actual language of the BookWorld is English, there are also other Great Libraries that are apparently completely other languages. The actual sublanguages of each BookWorld, however, are regarded as fonts. Thus (according to Bradshaw's BookWorld Companion), " Courier Bold is the traditional language of those in the support industries such as within the Well of Lost Plots, and Lorem Ipsum is the gutter slang of

7865-533: The aim of extracting characters from them and holding them to ransom. When Thursday rescued the extracted Jane Eyre, Hades escaped into the book, pursued by Thursday. Ultimately, they confronted each other in Thornfield Hall , where Thursday was finally able to eliminate her opponent once and for all. Acheron is the eldest child of the Hades Family, which is apparently evil as a whole (only one member

7986-435: The arrival of 'his eminence' the Jellyman. When he looks at the stalk, Jack has an urge to climb it. The only people in the house are a few police officers, Spratt, Mary, the Jellyman, Madeleine and their children. The few police officers stationed outside the house are alerted, and one by one, a strange creature kills them all. The monster bursts into the house in an attempt to kill the Jellyman. Jack leads him outside and climbs

8107-426: The author Daphne Farquitt. Kaine became a pagerunner, a character who escapes his or her own book and ultimately left the Bookworld altogether for the real world, where he ran for high political office during the events of Lost in a Good Book , only to be thwarted by Thursday and JurisFiction. By the events of Something Rotten , Kaine had advanced to the office of Chancellor, making him the second most powerful man in

8228-485: The back of the head on a daily basis until she broke his nose to get him to stop, but the two are very close. As of Lost in a Good Book he is in a relationship with Miles Hawke, an operative with SpecOps -14. Thursday's uncle and husband of Polly. Mycroft is an inventor of strange and unusual devices of varying degrees of use. Some have proved to be important plot devices throughout the series, such as his Prose Portal, which allowed real-world individuals to enter books and

8349-459: The beast killed him with its claw. Her plan was to kill the Jellyman and used Humpty as a host to create the monster. She only wanted to kill one person, but a lot of others were the victim of her powerful, and short wrath. Reviewing the book for UK Sunday newspaper The Observer , Peter Guttridge began by writing, "I'm not sure what it says about the mystery genre that pretty much the only unflawed, untroubled, morally unambiguous policeman around

8470-401: The body of a haddock. A few days later, Jack and Mary team up with Superintendent Baker, Ashley (an alien who can only speak binary code) and forensic scientist Gretel Kandlestyck-Maeker. Humpty Dumpty's wife is found to have committed suicide at the biscuit factory, but it is suspected that she has been murdered. The woman had jumped into a chocolate vat and was sliced by the machines, but when

8591-526: The book - having been murdered and replaced in the Swindon LiteraTecs team by Thursday. Dr. Runcible Spoon (Professor of English Literature at Swindon University) is named after the utensil with which The Owl and the Pussycat dine on "mince and slices of quince" in a nonsense rhyme by Edward Lear . Detective Inspector Oswald Mandias of Yorkshire CID (the policeman investigating the theft of

8712-485: The books and those in 'real life' to jump in and out of novels. This leads Thursday to change the ending of Jane Eyre , the joke being that the plot we know in our reality is the far superior change caused by Thursday. This also happens to other classic novels: Uriah Heep becomes the obsequious, and generally insincere character we know, due to an accident inside the book world, and Thursday's uncle Mycroft becomes Sherlock Holmes's brother . Thursday also finds that

8833-415: The car explodes. Spratt and Mary then interview a woman who was divorced from Humpty. The woman claims that she killed Humpty out of jealousy by putting three poisonous tablets in his coffee. Jack then tells her that Humpty was shot, not poisoned, and that she is therefore innocent. When Jack returns home, he notices a huge crowd of people around the house. His mother says that the beans that were thrown from

8954-442: The characters in novels are self-aware, knowing they are in a book. They make comments stating they are not needed until page 'such and such,' rather like actors in a play, and thus have time to help Thursday. The world of fiction has its own police force - Jurisfiction - to ensure that plots in books continue to run smoothly with each reading. Thursday ends up hiding in a book, and working for Jurisfiction. The book Caversham Heights

9075-408: The corners of the tin foil touch, the house will explode. When they leave, Jack realises that it is not a mirror at all, but glass. He breaks it and finds a room on the other side, made exactly backwards. The butler had a twin brother who appeared on the other side, looking like he had a reflection. Jack stops the bomb, but the killers escape in a plane. After talking to Mary, he thinks that the car bomb

9196-518: The criminal Acheron Hades in order to gain access. Once Hades was defeated within Jane Eyre , Schitt used the Prose Portal to enter what he thought was the manual for the plasma rifle that he wanted to retrieve, only to discover that Bowden Cable had slipped a copy of " The Raven " by Edgar Allan Poe inside the manual's dust cover instead. The Portal closed behind him, trapping him there. He

9317-405: The destruction of their unit. As a result, Thursday left him and refused to speak to him for ten years. They came back into contact during the events of The Eyre Affair , during which Thursday was finally able to forgive Landen and agreed to marry him. Despite his missing leg, he is relied upon in dangerous situations. During the events of Lost in a Good Book , Landen is eradicated from history by

9438-490: The employees stopped the machine, it was too late. The police of the Nursery Crime Division find a suicide note, but Mary concludes that it was written by his wife by comparing it to her diary. The proof of suicide also comes from a witnessing employee who saw her jump in, and no one pushed her. A few days later, the team are called in to investigate the recent death of Wee Willie Winkie. He was attacked with

9559-415: The events of The Well of Lost Plots , often interacting with other 'personas' as recalled by Next. This copy was capable of altering Thursday's memories to suit her own purposes, but was finally defeated when she summoned Thursday's worst memory, which turned out to be a childhood nightmare. The Aornis copy was unable to control it and it destroyed her, and Thursday was left with the reassurance that defeating

9680-464: The eventual head of the ChronoGuard, and/or the extensive powers of Colonel Next himself). The elder Next does, however, remain at large throughout the time-space continuum, and still frequently finds time to visit Thursday, usually by stopping time around her so they can talk without his being arrested by the ChronoGuard. Colonel Next's first name is unknown to everybody but him, a consequence of his eradication. Thursday has two brothers, Anton, who died in

9801-465: The first book, and, by the end of it, had married Landen Parke-Laine . Thursday juggles her work in Swindon and the world of fiction, battling the machinations of the insidious Goliath Corporation, members of the Hades family and other evils at every turn. Her biographer and stalker , "Millon de Floss", reveals more about her life at the beginnings of chapters in The Eyre Affair , Lost in

9922-426: The glass reverts to its original state, the only sign of his trespass being the slightly mottled surface of the glass where his hand passed through (shown when Thursday examines the empty Chuzzlewit glass security casing). He appears to possess great strength, at one point easily smashing his way through a wall, although inertia still has an effect on him. Time does not seem to have a proper hold on him either, as when it

10043-407: The goose that lays golden eggs and cut it open to find out what makes it lay these eggs, but are disappointed to find only find a normal goose's insides. Jack explains to Mary that Humpty, although a good egg, had many friends and many enemies. His previous wife thought she killed him by poison, his wife thought she killed him by shooting him in the shower, Solomon Grundy thought he killed him by hiring

10164-434: The house itself are held commonly every year. They next interview Lola Vavoom, who lives in the room next to Humpty Dumpty in the block of flats. At the end of the conversation she tells them that Humpty's shower had been running for a whole year, before his death. The two men break the door, and Baker finds a skeleton in the shower. The man is identified as Tom Thomm , son of a local flautist. His skin has been washed away by

10285-488: The house, the butler asks him to remove his mobile. The room becomes strange and starts to revolve. Jack enters a normal room with a mirror next, but he cannot see himself in the reflection. He sees Randolph and Lola come out of a trapdoor, and turns round, but sees no one. Randolph explains that this is his magic. Lola says that she is happy that Humpty is dead in the Ford Zephyr and reveals that she loves Randolph. Behind

10406-480: The images being created in the reader's mind. Within the depths of the Well of Lost Plots, the Text Sea is the source of all text for all books, and is the general burial ground for all destroyed characters to be once more reduced to text. Composed of a random jumble of words and punctuation, words are "trawled" for using scrawltrawlers, the equivalent of large fishing boats that capture words. Mass communication in

10527-403: The judge and jury of each scene presiding over the case at hand. Adjective-creating creatures and maggot-like in appearance, bookworms act as portable thesauri, changing common adjectives into others (for example "nice" into "amiable" or "attractive"). Their presence is welcome in most areas, however, should too many infest one area, the area uses too many adjectives and "flowery language", making

10648-457: The land. He was using Mycroft Next's invention, the Ovinator, to manipulate Parliament into doing what he wanted. During the events of that novel, where he was made real and ultimately lost the Ovinator, he was removed from power. First Among Sequels reveals he has been arrested and imprisoned. Member of the ChronoGuard and former partner of Colonel Next. Appears briefly at the end of Eyre Affair , questioning Thursday about her father. He plays

10769-577: The latter of which Jack offers to rent the spare room in his house to. They all describe Humpty as a nice egg, who generally kept to himself. Upon inspection of Humpty's room, Jack and Mary find some odd clues: several shares in Spongg Footcare, Reading's Footcare empire, a picture of Humpty with a girlfriend in Vienna, and a 28-foot-long strand of hair. They later interview Laura, Humpty Dumpty's ex-wife. When Jack returns home, he tells his mother that

10890-399: The most expensive. As additions to this pun, Landen's late father is named Billden Parke-Laine and his mother is named Houson Parke-Laine . Thursday's pet dodo , brought to life by genetic engineering. Originally she was believed to be male, but revealed to be female during the events of Lost in a Good Book , when she lays an egg. This ultimately hatches, producing her son, Alan. The name

11011-426: The narrative, appearing as Holmes' brother . By the time of Something Rotten he and Polly had returned safely to the real world, having used the memory erasure device to ensure that they were of no use to Goliath. A brilliant mathematician, Thursday's aunt, and wife of Mycroft. She generally serves as Mycroft's assistant, as she possesses far more common sense than her husband. She was temporarily held hostage within

11132-542: The novels The Eyre Affair , Lost in a Good Book , The Well of Lost Plots , Something Rotten , First Among Sequels , One of Our Thursdays Is Missing and The Woman Who Died a Lot . In his seventies, Analogy is the head of the Swindon branch of SO-27 , the LiteraTecs, and is therefore Thursday's immediate superior. An operative for SO-27 , the LiteraTecs, assigned to the Swindon branch, and Thursday's partner after her transfer. In his thirties and with

11253-594: The occasional appearance in the later books, showing up within Thursday's memories. Both ' Acheron ' and ' Hades ' refer to places in the mythical Greek underworld , as do ' Styx ' and ' Lethe '. Hicks is in charge of several divisions of SpecOps in Swindon, including the Literary Detectives to whom Thursday transfers. He is perpetually concerned with the budget and seemingly nothing else. He allows Jack Schitt to have his way at first and seemingly faces up poorly to higher authority, but in Something Rotten he invents an elaborate cover story for Thursday after her return. He

11374-753: The other rivers tributary to the Styx- however they do all flow through the Greek Underworld and separate its different regions. Miss Havisham is a member of the JurisFiction originating in the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens . She was assigned as Thursday Next's mentor when the younger woman first joined JurisFiction and tutored her through her examinations to become a fully fledged agent. A highly respected member of JurisFiction and one of their best operatives, her hobbies included driving powerful cars at terrifyingly high speeds. This hobby

11495-619: The page with his tongue in his cheek several new streets in the Orchid Vale area of Swindon have the names of literary characters that appear in the Thursday Next series. These include Thursday Street, Friday Street, Mycroft Road, Havisham Drive, Estella Close, Eyre Close, Braxton Road and Bradshaw Court. Characters in the Thursday Next Series#Wednesday Next The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde currently consists of

11616-508: The painting of the cow his mother wanted to sell was fake and he only received some beans in return. Mrs. Spratt retorts that she had the painting valued years ago and that the auctioneer probably knows how incredibly valuable it is. She is so upset that she throws the beans out of the window, and Jack sees them bury into the ground by themselves. There is another interview at a hospital called Saint Cerebellum's, this time with mad scientist doctor Quatt, and on their way to meeting her Jack notices

11737-414: The puzzle piece, and the verruca would give off a gas which would infect all the people's feet with verrucas. They would turn to the only foot care product, made by Randolph Spongg, and the failing company would make thousands. Jack is told that the man who shot Humpty was employed by Solomon Grundy, but Jack knows that Solomon is not the killer and sets off to find the real one, Randolph Spongg. Arriving at

11858-459: The real Aornis would now be easy. (Aornis and Thursday do not have their final confrontation until The Woman Who Died a Lot .) Thursday claims that Aornis's name is derived from the fact that the Acheron , Lethe , Cocytus , Phlegethon , and Aornis rivers are all tributaries to the river Styx . However, in canonical descriptions of the underworld, there is no river by the name Aornis, nor are

11979-729: The research facility to investigate. When a sample of the misspelling vyrus was released within Perkin's laboratory, Snell stayed behind to attempt to deal with it. He died from his injuries shortly afterwards. A senior Goliath employee and half-brother of Jack Schitt. Schitt-Hawse is primarily responsible for the eradication from history of Landen Parke-Laine during the events of Lost in a Good Book , in order to blackmail Thursday into retrieving Jack Schitt from inside Poe's The Raven . Thursday agreed to retrieve Schitt, only for Schitt-Hawse to subsequently imprison her, intending to study her bookjumping ability in order to open up new potential markets for

12100-476: The serial killer the 'Gingerbread Man'. Jack had been chasing the killer in previous cases and had to witness his colleague having his arms ripped off, only for the local newspaper, the Gadfly, to say that Chymes had caught the 'Gingerbread Man'. The interview with Dr. Quatt only reveals that she was Humpty's doctor. The conversation ends with Quatt showing Jack and Mary her latest experiment, a kitten's head sewn onto

12221-421: The shower water, and his skeleton is badly damaged. There are also five bullet holes in the shower curtain, three at waist height and two at foot height. Gretel says that when Tom was shot in the waist, he fell on the floor, where the two other shots hit his head. Jack then realises that Tom's killer was Humpty's wife: the three waist-height shots would have been head height for Humpty. His wife killed herself as she

12342-445: The stalk, followed by the beast. When they are high up in the sky, the monster rips Jack off and he falls all the way through the garden shed. When Jack regains consciousness, he sees a chainsaw. He is reminded of the axe and takes it and begins hacking down the beanstalk, aiming for the beast to fall down. It jumps onto him and tries to kill him, but a voice behind it makes it stop. Dr. Quatt appears in front of Jack and tells him that she

12463-653: The successful intervention of The Great Panjandrum , the clone was demoted, and Thursday was then asked to assume the role, which she accepted, holding the position for around two years before resigning during the events of Something Rotten . The Bellman is hinted to be the lead character in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark . He urges the PROs to "be careful out there", quoting the roll-call sergeant from Hill Street Blues . Due to boundary changes (a reference to

12584-599: The ten most boring classics. She helps Thursday realize her bookjumping abilities by having her read The Flopsy Bunnies aloud over and over. In The Well of Lost Plots she comes to stay with Thursday in Caversham Heights and helps her to remember Landen and defeat Aornis's mindworm, assuring her that the real Aornis will be much easier. Gran's identity comes into question later on when Thursday realizes that both her grandmothers are long dead and she's only known Gran Next for about three years. Finally, when Thursday

12705-422: The text unreadable. A variety of species occurring, the grammasite was a failed attempt to change nouns into verbs. Escaping from the experiment, their release resulted in a disaster, as they can contribute severe damage to a book. The known types of grammasites include adjectivores, which suck all description from an object, and verbisoids, as well as others. Verbisoids can be beaten by irregular verbs. Although

12826-491: The time of Something Rotten Cheese has been reassigned to work at a Goliath-owned café. The Big Over Easy The Big Over Easy is a 2005 novel written by Jasper Fforde . It features Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant, Sergeant Mary Mary. It is set in an alternate reality similar to that of his previous books: The Eyre Affair , Lost in a Good Book , The Well of Lost Plots and Something Rotten . According to Fforde, The Big Over Easy

12947-433: The tools to become a JurisFiction agent herself. After her husband retires, the couple moved into Thornfield Hall in the novel Jane Eyre , where they manage the house, carefully avoiding any appearances in the narrative. Brother to Thursday and Joffy Next and best friend of Landen Parke-Laine. He fought in the Crimean War and died there during a disastrous battle which occurred after he accidentally sent his unit off in

13068-448: The top of the Great Library is a large dome that appears to see a large forest like area below, with other Great Libraries in the distance; there being one for every language. The 26 basements, known as the Well of Lost Plots, hold unpublished works, although whether they are arranged alphabetically by level or not has yet to be discovered. Books which are not published are scrapped, and their text recycled for future works. The Cheshire Cat

13189-416: The two, the butler comes out of the trapdoor, but to Jack's surprise the butler is behind him. Jack is confused as he is standing in front of a mirror and cannot see his reflection, but that of Randolph and Lola, and the butler is the only one with a reflection. Randolph puts a sandwich with tin foil inside on a table and shines a lamp on it. He explains that the sandwich will crumple up under the heat, and when

13310-574: The underworld—useful to have a few phrases in case you get into trouble in Horror or Noir." ( Lorem ipsum is a dummy text used to demonstrate layout. It is the only language Friday Next speaks as a young child.) On his website Fforde reports that the Swindon Town Planning office, due to expansion and the need to name new streets, asked him if he would mind them using names of characters from his books. While Fforde seems to have written

13431-458: The window had grown into a huge stalk. She has even made arrangements for the magical celebrity, the Jellyman, to see it when he arrives in Reading. Jack is told by Gretel that Humpty Dumpty was shot by someone from behind, which smashed through his shell and burst the albumen, sending a shock which cracked the whole egg. When Mary, Spratt and the inspector enter Humpty's house, they wonder how Humpty got his money: he had no proper job and all he did

13552-433: The world to ransom in Lost , giving Thursday the ultimatum that she would stop her plan if Thursday takes her own life. With her plan thwarted at the last minute by the intervention of Colonel Next, Aornis escaped. In First Among Sequels , she is seen imprisoned by the Chronoguard, in a time-loop inside the T.K. Maxx department store. A mental copy of Aornis, embedded in Thursday's memories, made several appearances during

13673-771: The wrong direction (this mimics the role of Captain Louis Nolan in the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854; Anton directs the Light Armoured Brigade into the teeth of the Russian artillery). After much agonising over whether to tell the truth, Landen finally gave evidence to the inquest about Anton's error, which drove a wedge between him and Thursday, until the two reconciled during the events of The Eyre Afair . Thursday's father and ex-member of SO-12,

13794-430: Was eventually used against her during the events of The Well of Lost Plots , when a car she was driving was sabotaged, causing her to crash. Badly burned, she returned to her novel, where she and Pip staged her death within the novel. She is replaced by a generic understudy, which is understood by all to be 'not the same'. Yorrick Kaine is a fictional character, originating in a highly limited self-published early novel by

13915-478: Was invest in failing companies. Their question is answered when they discover on the sofa a goose that lays golden eggs. On a further inspection, a giant verruca is found on another sofa. Jack then remembers a strange doctor, Horatio Carbuncle, who always made living things like the verruca. He killed Humpty Dumpty because he was investing in a company which got rid of verrucas. Humpty's wife killed herself because she thought that she had killed him, and Wee Willie Winkie

14036-433: Was killed because he was blackmailing him. Jack is not sure about Tom, but thought the evidence is good enough. Mary then calls him into the next room and shows him the body of Carbuncle, shot dead. Jack then remembers the verruca and the puzzle piece. If Randolph was the killer, he would have the best motive so that he could put the verruca under the floor of Solomon's room. Hundreds of people would come in bare-footed to see

14157-520: Was not intended for them, but for Humpty. He gets this idea because Lola said that Humpty died in the Zephyr, so was hoping he would be killed in it. Moments later, Jack is informed by Gretel that Humpty survived the shot, and that instead, he hatched, because Dr. Quatt secretly fecundated him in vitro. The team are thrown into confusion as they try to find a giant chicken which they think Humpty hatched into. Spratt and Mary then return to his house to attend

14278-534: Was published in July 2006. The book is satirical, based on many nursery rhymes , fables , and the like. The main character Jack Spratt is based on Jack Sprat , and the secondary character is Mary Mary , both from nursery rhymes. They investigate events such as the Three Little Pigs and Humpty Dumpty . People from such sources are known in the book as PDRs, "persons of dubious reality". The book begins

14399-568: Was slain when the Minotaur, held captive within the fantasy, was deliberately released to kill him. Snell worked as the lawyer for JurisFiction. He is the first to contact Thursday by Footnoterphone in Lost in a Good Book , and as head of the JurisFiction legal team defends her at her first hearing in Franz Kafka 's The Trial . When contact was lost with Perkins, he, accompanied by Thursday Next, Miss Havisham and Commander Bradshaw, entered

14520-432: Was sorry for what she had done. Jack is interviewed by colleagues, and Friedland Chymes appears and warns Spratt that if he does not give the case to Chymes, he will be fired. Jack accepts that that may happen, and refuses to give the case away. Later on, they have a meeting with another industrialist, Solomon Grundy, whose wife is Rapunzel. When she takes off her hat and her hair falls to the ground, Spratt and Mary remember

14641-412: Was ultimately retrieved by Thursday during the events of Lost in a Good Book , after Goliath arranged to have her husband Landen eradicated from history by the Chronoguard in order to blackmail her. She cooperated, only to find herself double-crossed. Schitt, however, never returned to his original position in the corporation; when next seen, during the events of Something Rotten , he has been demoted to

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