The start of Fall is, for me, inextricably linked with Academia, not just because it’s the start of school. When the wind gets nippy there’s no better place to escape than a library, full of books and blankets. Warm sweaters and overcoats are Peak School Vibes. And the candles of Autumn decor seem to mesh with handwritten notes and sealed letters.

Of course, all of these also mesh well with a Very Specific flavor of fantasy. I grew up reading The Spiderwick Chronicles and the original Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. So I have an abiding love for the Fantastical Researcher, who combines all the best, coziest parts of Fall Academia. All you need is a journal / logbook, a magical adventure, delicate drawings and adventure in pursuit of knowledge.

Therefore, you might expect that I’d have come across Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Fairies before now. After all, the book literally follows a Magical Researcher developing, in true Spiderwick fashion, an encyclopedia of fae beings. To my chagrin, I found it only recently, and instantly devoured it. I resonated with its portrayal of an introverted researcher, still determined to work in the wild. And I adored the way it melded old faerie stories to create a new adventure. Beyond the story itself, the book is a journal – a series of log entries. And as readers of this blog know, I love a good epistolary novel. The format here really adds, both to the academic vibes and the storytelling itself. What a wonderful cozy way to kick off my Fall reading.

An introvert’s guide to field research

The book starts with the titular Emily landing in Ljosland, a small Norwegian village, where she hopes to research the local faeries. She immediately commits several faux pas that lead to her hosts and the entire village shunning her. This is particularly unfortunate given that researching fae often benefits from hearing lore from the locals.

I have never resonated so much with a character in my adult life. Introverted characters often end up stuffed away in libraries or hidden away from customer and clients. It feels rare to see a character driven by her intellectual interests to take a job that forces social interaction. And so it is particularly validating to see Emily make her mistakes. And it’s great to watch her work through them, particularly with the help of her extroverted colleague, Bambleby.

It’s not a simple case of “just be more extroverted”, however. Emily and Bambleby balance each other out, creating a powerful research team. Emily’s got drive and a head for detail, while Bambleby charms the locals and follows his gut. They genuinely create better research, and Fawcett accurately captures the tension and creativity that can come from a team with diverse approaches. As an introvert married to an extrovert, in a job that’s client-facing, I’ve got a particular partiality to these themes. But in my experience, it’s rare to see them, and even rarer to see them feel so accurate.

Old themes, new stories

I love reading fairy tale and mythological retellings. In my experience, fantasy novels based on these elements come in many flavors. These range on a spectrum from retellings of a favorite fairy story to simply incorporating the lore, AU-style. Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Fairies is more the latter, with Fawcett imagining a world where fairy lore reflects reality. Emily and Bambleby are thus a cross between zoologists and anthropologists, learning about creatures distinct from humans who nevertheless impact human lives.

This is a tricky worldbuilding line to walk. Fawcett can’t stray completely from the stories that exist in our world, but must create a sense of novelty. She must focus on the research subjects in Norway, but establish a broader world of fae such that an Encylopaedia project makes sense. And she must spin new tales that keep in line with the fae we know and the fae she writes about, while maintaining a sense of suspense.

Her approach to this is a work of art in epistolary worldbuilding. You get the sense that she’s done as much research on faerie mythology (at least Western myths) as Emily has. To create a sense of depth, she both layers different kinds of fae and drops in light reference to other mythologies. She structures her story to include multiple arcs and adventures, each requiring a combination of known lore and creativity to overcome. And the epistolary format really adds here, landing how uncertain Emily is in these situations and therefore how much more there is to know.

Even when Emily leans on her extensive knowledge of stories, there’s always a sense that her approach may not work. Both her narration and Bambleby’s concerns make it clear that knowledge is not enough – facing the fae and winning requires moral mettle and heart. The combination of worldbuilding and story beats is a sense of a thriving and dangerous world, full of under-researched faeries that pose a very real risk to our protagonists.

Journal into the unknown

If I’m going to count this towards my epistolary challenge (and I certainly will), I feel I owe some thought into how the format adds to the story. In this case, the journal/logbook format serves a couple of different purposes. It gives us clear insight into Emily, while reminding us that the story comes from her limited perspective. It allows Fawcett to introduce new goals into the story to keep the pacing tight, even as Emily and Bambleby complete small adventures in research. And it creates a sense of the unknown, reinforcing that the faeries are relatively unknown quantities to humans (and, it turns out, to each other).

Fawcett gives Emily a distinctly crotchety and goal-driven voice, and allows her to make some obvious mistakes early on. This establishes her early on as an unreliable narrator – but a reliably unreliable one. We can tell from the narration that her factual understanding of the faeries is likely to reflect reality. We can also tell that she’s likely to miss most of the emotional undercurrents of the story. If Emily states how she’s feeling – that’s likely true. If she guesses at someone else’s reaction, it’s less likely to be accurate. And from the earliest pages, this sense of unreliable unreliability makes us feel closer to Emily, like we can interpret her words to get greater meaning, like she’s someone we know.

That sense of investment ties closely into the second benefit of the epistolary format for this book. Research adventures tend not to follow a clearly defined story arc. Because Emily’s exploits look more like short, escalating novellas, it’s important that we get a sense of continuity between them. The epistolary format gives that, allowing us to understand why Emily keeps going, how she ties her learnings together. Journal entries often end with Emily expressing her hopes for what comes next, giving a sense of forward motion even when she’s accomplished something significant.

Those hopes also establish how much more Emily hopes to learn, giving a sense of scale to the research and the world. When Emily expresses uncertainty about her research or how to tackle a particular fae issue, it reminds us that these are unknown and unpredictable beings. Even the logbook format is a visceral reminder that this is voyage of discovery – that these entries are scientific data. The whole novel is a masterclass in a more subtle form of epistolary storytelling – a great way in which form matches function.

—

As you can probably tell, I loved this book. It’s such a perfect blend of epistolary fiction, Academic vibes, and faerie fantasy (with a dash of romance sprinkled in). There is a new series entry coming out next year – and I am so excited that I will get to review it early. Stay tuned for even more Emily Wilde…

Until then, stay cozy, and stay curious!