A Marvellous Light

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-15

Chapters 16-23

Chapter 24-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Background

Series Context: The Last Binding Trilogy

In A Marvellous Light, Freya Marske introduces characters who will appear throughout her series, often with foreshadowing of later developments. Reggie Gatling’s murderers are never fully identified, with only a brief reference to “George.” Billy and Walt’s reluctance to name their leader, or who cursed Robin, preserves these mysteries to be resolved in later installments. Hawthorn’s relatives are key to the conspiracy, and Billy and Walt fear interference from his powerful parents. This adds thematic resonance to the trilogy, as it emphasizes the importance of family tragedy as well as found family.

Robin’s name is an important clue that subsequent works in the series are likely to include fairies and their role in British magic. Robin Goodfellow was a popular figure in early modern English folktales and is perhaps best known when he appears as Puck in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Robin’s visions take on particular importance in grounding the events of the trilogy, as his repeated emphasis on a blond woman, Hawthorn, and a journey by boat indicate the key setting of A Restless Truth. This also increases the reader’s interest in Hawthorn, who appears as largely unsympathetic and cruel, making it more intriguing to imagine him taking on a central role as an ally later. Robin’s brief vision of a young man with a notebook is a description of Alan Ross, who appears in the trilogy’s final two books and becomes Hawthorn’s adversary and love interest. Maud’s interest in education and longing for purpose make her deeply sympathetic in the first book. Introducing a sibling or friend of the protagonist, to have them feature later in a romance of their own, is common in the genre—Maud’s presence and interest in the blonde woman’s identity also hints at her relationship with Violet. Marske uses Robin’s visions to enhance reader curiosity about future relationships while indicating that the conspiracy of the Last Contract is complex and will take time for the wider cast of characters to resolve.

Historical Context: Edwardian England and Pre–World War I Europe

The period from the French Revolution in 1789 to the start of World War I in 1914 is often conceptualized as the “long nineteenth century”—a period of European economic modernization and social change that disrupted hierarchies based in aristocratic birth. By 1908, European society was a world in flux in many realms. Ordinary people and intellectuals lived with the benefits of significant technological advancement: frequent travel by rail, the advent of automobiles, and advances in science thanks to the emergence of germ theory, discoveries about the atom and radiation, and the gradual embrace of evolution as an accepted theory in natural science. This focus on progress was also accompanied by anxieties, and “many, in either hopeful or fearful expectation, believed in the coming of a crisis that would result in the end of a period of civilization,” while others saw scientific advancement as proof the 20th century would be prosperous (Gilbert, Felix, and David Clay Large. The End of the European Era, 1890 to the Present, W.W. Norton & Company, pp. 10-11). Fears of war and escalating international tensions were a hallmark of the period, which explains why the war, and cryptic references to a forthcoming cataclysm, feature in both Robin’s visions and in the arguments of the conspirators he and Edwin oppose.

The emergence of the middle class and the decline of the aristocracy were a source of anxiety for elites: In Marske’s work, this is represented by the Blyths’ relative economic precarity compared to their ancestors, who could rely on their agricultural estates and the profits they extracted from tenant farmers to maintain their wealth. These social and economic changes led some to fear moral and national degeneration, and some appropriated the language of science to endorse reactionary ideas, advocating eugenics and insisting that racism and antisemitism could be scientifically justified. In Marske’s trilogy, the obsession with magical bloodlines and the stigma attached to those who lack magical ability reflects these historical trends. Robin’s mention of the trial of Oscar Wilde in 1895, under the anti-gay statute that considered his personal life “gross indecency,” further grounds the narrative in the period’s social conservatism. Wilde is perhaps best known for his plays, among them The Importance of Being Earnest. Wilde is also the author of the Gothic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Some of Marske’s themes and motifs show clear debts to literature of the period, especially the works of EM Forster. In A Room With A View, protagonist Lucy confronts tensions between romance, fulfillment, and social expectation, much as Edwin, Robin, and Maud do. Lucy chooses a future with a man she truly loves, just as Edwin and Robin choose one another over the social norms of their society. For Forster, freedom is epitomized by Italy, a place free of English class structure. His longer work Howard’s End explores class tensions in the relationship between two families and their struggle over the eponymous country estate. Marske’s interest in inheritance, and Edwin’s role at Penhallick and as unexpected Sutton heir, highlights the endurance of property and identity in Marske’s fantasy context.