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Jasper Fforde - short biography
To download this as a PDF file, click HERE
Jasper began his career in the film industry, and for twenty years held a variety of posts on such movies as Goldeneye, The Mask of Zorro and Entrapment. Secretly harbouring a desire to tell his own stories rather than help other peole tell their's, Jasper started wrting in 1990, and within ten yearsof enjoyable hobbying and as he calls it 'learning by trial and error', finally came up with a novel - his seventh- that was deemed publishable by Hodder in the Uk and Penguin in the US.
The book was called The Eyre Affair and described a parralell universe where everyone enjoys literature so much that policing agencies exist to deal with literary crime. In this first book Jane Eure is kidnapped from her own book, and Jasper's heroine, the oddly named Thursday Next has to find out who has kidnapped Jane and why. The novel, which enetered the New York Time's best seller list in i's first week of publication is an odd mix of absurdist humour with high erudition mixed with gagas that would not seem out of place coming from a christmas cracker. A mixture of amolst every genre there is (Fforde describes it as 'the Swiss army knife of books') the book is by turns a er.
After receiving 76 rejection letters from publishers, Jasper's first novel The Eyre Affair was taken on by Hodder & Stoughton and published in July 2001. Set in 1985 in a world that is similar to our own, but with a few crucial - and bizarre - differences (Wales is a socialist republic, the Crimean War is still ongoing and the most popular pets are home-cloned dodos), The Eyre Affair introduces a remarkable heroine, a literary detective named 'Thursday Next'. Thursday's job includes spotting forgeries of Shakespeare's lost plays, mending holes in narrative plotlines, and rescuing characters who have been kidnapped from literary masterpieces.
The publication of The Eyre Affair started a 'book phenomenon', in which readers were catapulted in and out of truth and imagination. The novel garnered dozens of effusive reviews, and received high praise from the press, from booksellers and readers throughout the UK. The number of reprints have now reached double figures, and first editions are traded on ebay for hundreds of pounds. In the US The Eyre Affair was also an instant hit, entering the New York Times Bestseller List in its first week of publication. In addition to achieving impressive sales figures in the US, Jasper was also recently named in Entertainment Weekly (the bible for all media news in the US) as one of the members of its 'It' list for 2002 - alongside the likes of Philip Pullman, Anna Patchett, Stephen Carter, Ian McEwan and Eminem...
Jasper's second novel Lost in a Good Book was published in the UK in July 2002 and it has built on the amazing success of The Eyre Affair. The Sunday Times described him as "this year's grown up JK Rowling" and both books just keep on selling - their combined sales have now topped 140,000 copies. Jasper's eagerly awaited third novel in the Thursday Next series is called The Well of Lost Plots and is to be published in the UK in July 2003. Jasper lives and writes in Wales and has a passion for aviation.
Hodder Publicity, December 2002
The book was called The Eyre Affair and described a parralell universe where everyone enjoys literature so much that policing agencies exist to deal with literary crime. In this first book Jane Eure is kidnapped from her own book, and Jasper's heroine, the oddly named Thursday Next has to find out who has kidnapped Jane and why. The novel, which enetered the New York Time's best seller list in i's first week of publication is an odd mix of absurdist humour with high erudition mixed with gagas that would not seem out of place coming from a christmas cracker. A mixture of amolst every genre there is (Fforde describes it as 'the Swiss army knife of books') the book is by turns a er.
After receiving 76 rejection letters from publishers, Jasper's first novel The Eyre Affair was taken on by Hodder & Stoughton and published in July 2001. Set in 1985 in a world that is similar to our own, but with a few crucial - and bizarre - differences (Wales is a socialist republic, the Crimean War is still ongoing and the most popular pets are home-cloned dodos), The Eyre Affair introduces a remarkable heroine, a literary detective named 'Thursday Next'. Thursday's job includes spotting forgeries of Shakespeare's lost plays, mending holes in narrative plotlines, and rescuing characters who have been kidnapped from literary masterpieces.
The publication of The Eyre Affair started a 'book phenomenon', in which readers were catapulted in and out of truth and imagination. The novel garnered dozens of effusive reviews, and received high praise from the press, from booksellers and readers throughout the UK. The number of reprints have now reached double figures, and first editions are traded on ebay for hundreds of pounds. In the US The Eyre Affair was also an instant hit, entering the New York Times Bestseller List in its first week of publication. In addition to achieving impressive sales figures in the US, Jasper was also recently named in Entertainment Weekly (the bible for all media news in the US) as one of the members of its 'It' list for 2002 - alongside the likes of Philip Pullman, Anna Patchett, Stephen Carter, Ian McEwan and Eminem...
Jasper's second novel Lost in a Good Book was published in the UK in July 2002 and it has built on the amazing success of The Eyre Affair. The Sunday Times described him as "this year's grown up JK Rowling" and both books just keep on selling - their combined sales have now topped 140,000 copies. Jasper's eagerly awaited third novel in the Thursday Next series is called The Well of Lost Plots and is to be published in the UK in July 2003. Jasper lives and writes in Wales and has a passion for aviation.
Hodder Publicity, December 2002