The Left-Handed Librarian

While I am a long-time magical realism enthusiast, I’ve recently become more drawn to the genre within historic fiction. Heather Fawcett’s Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries hit all the right marks. Folklore and magic baked into a believable historic setting? Check. Intelligent, slightly anti-social heroine? Check. Classic fairy tales viewed from a unique perspective? Check, check, check.

Emily Wilde is a professor of Dryadology at Cambridge University near the end of the Edwardian Era. Fond of dogs but not of people, Emily wants nothing more than to be left alone to conduct research for her encyclopaedia on the Folk. After traveling to the remote village of Hrafnsvik, Emily quickly finds her plans for efficient and solitary field work upended as she attempts to document an elusive species of faerie.

Written in the style of a personal field journal, I found Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries to be as charming as it was academic. Fawcett’s writing skillfully fashions her titular character into a pragmatic yet sympathetic narrator. Footnotes throughout the novel prove to be a clever and informative world-building device. Plot-driven inconsistencies between the journal entries—which would normally disrupt my immersion in the story—add to the intrigue and further pull the reader into Emily’s (mis)adventures.

Having now read all three books, I can confidently recommend the entire Emily Wilde series. Fawcett expertly balances the dark and occasionally sinister characteristics of classic folklore with a touch of whimsy, paying homage to the nature of the old tales without leaning too far into the disturbing. She draws on the empathy of her readers by testing the wits of her characters, heightening our investment in their well-being and desire to see them succeed. As a reader who enjoys predicting the connections between seemingly minute details and major plot points, following Emily as she deciphers her own riddles through the lens of the stories she loves was highly satisfying.

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries (followed by Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands and Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales) was a quick but fulfilling read that I will gladly revisit. More information about the series and the author can be found on the publisher’s website.

Happy reading!

Kayla