Jasper Fforde - Biography
Jasper Fforde worked in the film industry for 13 years where his varied
career included the role of "focus puller" on films such as Goldeneye, The
Mask of Zorro and Entrapment. He had been writing purely for his own
amusement for several years, but always harboured a dream of trading in his
film career to become a full time writer.
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.
