Jasper Fforde is an eminent British novelist and a filmmaker. He writes adult comic fantasies which are often set parallel to other British writers’ works, such as Woody Allen, and Sara Paretsky and J.K. Rowling. His widely recognized works include Thursday Next series, Nursery Crime series, Shades of Grey.
Born on January 11, 1961, in London, England, Fforde was a son of one of the most prominent banker of the Bank of England. He and his other four siblings were brought up in London and Wales. He received his education from a boarding school and graduated in 1979 beginning his professional career as a production runner for the films, The Ploughman’s Lunch and The Pirates of Penzance, in early 1980n’s. He then took the responsibilities as a first assistant cameraman for notable films like The Saint and The Mask of Zorro. His cinematography work is applauded in Lift, Passengers and Engaged.
Subsequently, he embarked on his writing career, publishing his debut novel in 2001. However, it was not an easy task for Fforde to have his first book published. He wrote several manuscripts for over a decade before one of the publishers consented to publish his work. His first book, The Eyre Affair, is the re-imagination of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre involving mystery factor and surrealism. It features literary detective Thursday Next in pursuit of a master criminal in Bronte’s world of Jane Eyre, now set in alternative 1985. Before being published, Fforde received 76 rejection letters but as his first novel made it to the bookstores, it became an original work of art. The sophisticated structure, complex plot and theme, and integration of varying genres in a single piece of fiction not only earned Fforde an esteemed position among established literary writers but also changed the course of single-genre novel writing altogether.
At the positive reception of his first work, Fforde began working on a series of novels featuring the literary detective Thursday Next. The series include Lost in a Good Book, Something Rotten, One of our Thursdays Is Missing, The Well of Lost Plots and a few more titles. The female protagonist, Thursday Next, is a secret agent working with British police force that carries out unusual duties. For instance, one of the novels revolves around the theft of the manuscript of Charles Dickens’s Martin Chuzzlewit and how the detective chases the culprit through English literary classics. The border between literature and reality is shown to be blurred.
Fforde’s another fantasy series, Nursery Crimes, feature Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and Sergeant Mary Mary. The first book, titled The Big Over Easy (2005), takes place in the same alternate universe. The detective and sergeant set out to track down the perpetrator responsible for Humpty Dumpty’s fall. The sequel to the book was published in 2006, titled The Fourth Bear. Fforde’s puts his own spin on a children’s story Goldilocks and the Three Bears, in his novel. In 2010, he published two new series, entitled Shades of Grey and The Dragonslayer trilogy. He has also produced numerous short stories.
It is evident in Fforde’s literary works that he is enamored with the idea of experimenting with use of language and incorporation of several different genres in one book. Critics identified the elements of satire, fantasy, science fiction, thriller and romance in his books. Even though his books have fantastical premise, there is a conspicuous satirical element to them which address the serious issues. Jasper Fforde was awarded the Wodehouse prize for comic fiction in 2004. He currently resides in Wales with his wife and children.
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