Imagine a London where the threat of Nazi bombs is only one of many dangers, and where the fate of the war itself could change not just because of human action, but because of ancient magic lurking in the city’s very stones. This is the world of Francis Spufford’s novel 'Nonesuch,' a genre-bending tale that doesn’t just reimagine history, but actively rewrites it with the intervention of magic. For anyone curious about how fantasy can fundamentally alter the way we think about real events—especially the high-stakes drama of World War II—'Nonesuch' offers a dazzling, sometimes unsettling answer.
Short answer: In 'Nonesuch,' magic is not just a backdrop or metaphor—it is a tool wielded by characters to actively try to alter history. The novel centers on a plot by fascist sympathizers to use time-traveling magic to prevent Britain from declaring war on Nazi Germany, thus threatening to upend the entire outcome of World War II. The protagonist, Iris Hawkins, must confront both the supernatural and the all-too-human dangers of her time to stop these magical interventions and preserve the historical timeline.
Magic as an Engine of Alternative History
Unlike many historical fantasies that use magic as mere atmosphere or symbolism, 'Nonesuch' makes it a direct agent of change—one that interacts with and potentially disrupts real historical events. The Spectator (spectator.com.au) describes the novel as featuring “angels, black magic, parallel universes and incorporeal paths into the past,” and notes that the central plot revolves around a fascist, Lady Lalage Cunningham (Lall), who seeks an “esoteric spell to travel back and erase the path that led to war, while leaving Hitler free to govern Germany.” This isn’t a case of magical realism where the fantastic hovers at the edge of reality; instead, magic here is instrumental, with spells and occult rituals capable of rewriting the fates of nations.
Slate.com reinforces this, highlighting that Lall’s time-travel scheme is “to prevent England’s declaration of war on Germany,” and that Iris, the working-class heroine, stumbles into this plot and becomes entangled in a battle for the future. The stakes are not abstract—they are the very real possibility of a Nazi-dominated Europe, prevented only by the intervention of those who can counteract this dark magic.
The Mechanics of Magical Intervention
The magic in 'Nonesuch' is not airy or vague. It is rooted in the tangible, and often terrifying, remnants of England’s occult traditions, especially those preserved by secret aristocratic orders. According to goodreads.com, Iris must face “time-traveling fascists, and the remnants of Renaissance magic, preserved in the statues of the burning city.” The Spectator elaborates with a memorable image: in the opening chapter, Iris recites a spell and “the huge statue outside her office window turns its head and, with a voice ‘like a glacier grinding on a cliff’, asks what she wants.” Here, magic is physically embedded in London’s architecture and history, an ever-present possibility that can be harnessed for good or ill.
The magical order, to which both Lall and Geoff’s father are connected, is depicted as decaying but still potent. Slate.com notes that its members “are intent on using what magical powers they retain to secure their own privileges,” suggesting that magic and class power are intertwined. This is not a world where magic is democratized or whimsical; it is guarded, secretive, and deeply enmeshed with the ruling elite’s desire to maintain or reclaim control.
Time Travel and the Threat to History
'Nonesuch' fits into what the Historical Novel Society (historicalnovelsociety.org) calls the “secret history” sub-genre of historical fantasy. Its core conceit is the possibility that “history hangs by a thread,” as faber.co.uk puts it, and that the timeline of the Second World War might be fundamentally altered by occult intervention. The Spectator notes that these magical actors have “found an esoteric spell to travel back and erase the path that led to war,” introducing genuine suspense: could all that is known of the twentieth century be undone?
The time travel in the novel is not purely technological or scientific, as in classic science fiction. Instead, it is “incorporeal paths into the past,” as described by the Spectator, or “twisted passages between past and present,” as faber.co.uk phrases it. This blending of the mystical and the temporal means that the fabric of reality is unstable, and that history is not a fixed sequence but a battlefield of competing magical wills.
The Personal Stakes: Iris as Both Target and Defender
At the center of this struggle is Iris Hawkins, whose working-class background and ambitions make her both an unlikely protagonist and a symbol of the ordinary people whose lives are most at risk from grand historical manipulations. Slate.com and The Spectator both emphasize that she is “the only person who knows how to work the teleprinter” at her financial firm, and that her savvy, wit, and refusal to be intimidated are key to her survival. But she’s also drawn into the magical conflict almost by accident—first by her encounter with Geoff, a BBC technician, and then by her inadvertent discovery of the magical conspiracy.
Goodreads.com points out that “what was supposed to be one night of abandon draws her instead into a nightmare of otherworldly pursuit—into a reality where time bends, spirits can be summoned, and history hangs by a thread.” The danger is immediate and intimate: Iris is pursued by “a strange, malevolent entity” after witnessing too much, and soon she and Geoff are running for their lives, as described by the Historical Novel Society.
The book’s power lies in how these grand magical designs intersect with the texture of daily wartime life. As Slate.com observes, Spufford “wants the reader to feel and smell and hear what it was like to live in the city during wartime.” The threat of magical intervention is layered on top of the very real terror of the Blitz, making every night a gamble: “each bomb might be that one; you couldn’t know it wasn’t till it hadn’t fallen on you.”
'Nonesuch' is not just a fantasy adventure; it is also a meditation on how the course of history can hinge on individual choices, and how power—magical or otherwise—tends to concentrate among the privileged. The Historical Novel Society notes that the novel “fits into the ‘secret history’ sub-genre,” where the personal and the political intertwine, and where “decisions she makes now will irrevocably alter her path,” hinting at the possibility of alternative versions of events in the planned sequel.
The Spectator draws a parallel to the work of Charles Williams, another Oxford fantasist who wrote about the Blitz and supernatural forces at work in London. The presence of “shape-shifting angels” and “a lowly and numerous category of aerial spirits… proletariat of the angelic species,” suggests that magic in 'Nonesuch' is both a literal threat and a way of exploring the unseen forces—social, psychological, historical—that shape our world.
A City Where History and Fantasy Collide
One of the novel’s most striking features, noted by multiple sources including faber.co.uk and Slate.com, is its evocation of wartime London as both a physical and a magical space. The city’s “coal-black cliffs” and “dim maze” of blackout streets provide the perfect setting for the blending of history and fantasy. The Spectator describes scenes where Iris “travels in mid air across the City, through the terrifying barrage of the Blitz, on crystal pathways summoned by magical commands.” The effect is cinematic, spectacular, and deeply immersive.
This collision of the magical and the historical is not just for show. By embedding magic in the statues, streets, and very stones of London, Spufford asks readers to consider how the past is always present, and how the stories we tell about history are themselves a kind of magic—capable of making us see the world anew, or of blinding us to its dangers.
Conclusion: Magic as a Force for Change—and for Reflection
In sum, 'Nonesuch' uses magic not as escapism, but as a force that can literally and metaphorically alter the course of history. By making the outcome of World War II contingent on the success or failure of magical interventions, the novel invites readers to reflect on the fragility of the past and the dangers of those who would rewrite it for their own ends. As faber.co.uk puts it, the balance of historical realism and fantasy is “handled with a degree of mastery and attention to detail,” making the magical elements feel not just plausible, but urgent.
Through Iris Hawkins’s journey, Spufford shows that the struggle to preserve the integrity of history—and to resist those who would use any means, magical or otherwise, to subvert it—is both a grand adventure and a deeply personal battle. The magic in 'Nonesuch' is thus a tool of both destruction and hope: capable of rewriting the past, but also of forging new futures, both for individuals and for the world. As the Historical Novel Society wonders, the sequel may show us “an alternative version of the events in this novel as a result of the drastic decision Iris makes at the end of it.” In 'Nonesuch,' history is never set in stone—but, in Spufford’s hands, it is always spellbinding.