Epistolary narratives usually encourage a certain sense of intimacy. They invite the reader to bear witness to secrets penned in diaries, letters, and other personal documents, offering a direct and richer access to the character’s interiority and experiences. An example of this is Jo Walton’s 2011 novel Among Others, wherein we encounter the crippling loneliness and melancholy of a twin sister who is sent to boarding school after the death of her sibling. Each entry in her journal documents her slow healing, with the help of science fiction books and fairies. But in addition to this enhanced sense of interiority, an assemblage of epistles written by different (fictional) persons also simulates polyphony, helping the reader figure out a novel’s bigger picture when the characters haven’t—a technique perfected in Gothic classics such as Frankenstein (1818) or Dracula (1897).
Heather Fawcett’s epistolary novel, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, invokes both of these functions in interesting ways but not satisfactorily. The title is somewhat misleading; this isn’t a scholarly compendium of faeries in western folklore in the vein of anthropologist Katharine Mary Briggs’s work in British folklore studies, but rather a fictional account of one woman’s attempt to achieve such a volume. We follow Emily Wilde, a rising Cambridge academic, as she journeys to Hrafnsvik, a remote Scandinavian village, to document the fairies living there. Her diary is a travelogue of sorts, peppered with pretty descriptions of the frosty countryside; it records her dubious interactions with the locals and the investigations she conducts to draw out the fae, accompanied by academic footnotes (reminiscent of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell [2004] but nowhere near as copious or in-depth). Also included are a few lovely folktales.
Tonally, the book is a mixture of cottagecore and light academia vibes. The start is slow and rather idyllic, even as Emily struggles to chop wood to keep her hovel warm, or make small talk with the strangers. Yet these slice-of-life moments, presented in the form of diary entries in which Emily gradually adjusts to her new life and the icy climate, are delightful to read. Her rural idyll is interrupted, however, by the appearance of Wendell Bambleby, Emily’s colleague and friendly academic rival. Unlike Emily, who is hardworking and meticulous in her research, the aristocratic and bone-lazy Bambleby relies on his charm and conversational skills to get things done. He enlists two graduate students for household tasks, charms the locals, and sleeps with the village girls, allegedly to make Emily jealous. His arrival also quickly ups the stakes: we learn that villagers are frequently abducted by the courtly fae or often replaced with changelings, Bambleby himself may not be fully human, and Emily’s quest for knowledge might have some immediate, practical implications.
In many regards, Heather Fawcett’s book is a straightforward faerie novel. Given the perennial popularity of faerie stories, be it in the form of fairytales or a bestselling Holly Black title, the mythos surrounding the Fair Folk has seemingly become part of the cultural unconscious—a set of folkloric signifiers that evoke a larger, fully-formed, fantastical world, governed by certain laws. Most readers are familiar with the superstitions about accepting food and drink from the fey, the importance of zealously guarding one’s true name, and that all dealings with faeries involve clever wordplay, careful bargaining, and exacting promises. These rules establish the Fair Folk as trickster spirits, forever prone to mischief and malice, but constrained by their need for logic and truth. It provides a tool kit for writers to play with, allowing them to jump to the story without worrying about info-dumpy expositions. But the disadvantage of this approach is that it rarely offers anything new.
Thus, all of Emily’s magical escapades require little explanation, and this coupled with the epistolary form (in which a suspense-ridden event, such as a character’s capture and subsequent escape, must have already happened for the character to survive and write about it, thereby reducing the tension) means the novel becomes a tad predictable. Although the book engages with popular faerie lore, it does so by recycling and reiterating old tropes, without adding anything new to the tradition; the courtly fae remain elusive, whimsical, mythic creatures, a mere plot device to bolster Emily’s growth throughout the novel.
The book is also, ostensibly, an academia novel. It frankly depicts the unfair and exploitative practices within academic institutions without entirely critiquing them. Emily’s passion for her subject and attention to detail is easily discernible, but, despite her professional accomplishments, she is yet to enjoy the senior, tenured position of her male colleague Bambleby, who is frequently credited as a coauthor in research papers without doing much actual work. Nevertheless, he is regarded as a foremost expert whose very name and association can open career doors for young students; the latter, more often than not, have to fight their way to the top, relying both on their academic performance as well as networking skills to get the choicest recommendation letters and spots at international conferences. Indeed, Bambleby has students performing manual labor for him, but his flaws, privileges, and academic malpractices are glossed over by the novel because he’s supposedly good-natured and also slated to be Emily’s love interest.
Yet, Wendell Bambleby, as an exiled member of the courtly fae and a senior academic, cuts a curious figure—capable of wielding both supernatural power over other mortals while also enjoying class and male privilege. Indeed, both the Fae Folk and the very structure of academia easily function as metaphors for different kinds of power structures, yet this novel misses the glorious opportunity to critique both. Instead, it forces that romance between Emily and Wendell. This detail is particularly irksome since Wendell is selfish, condescending, and manipulative—Emily clearly deserves better but she slowly falls for him, and, while she is entitled to her own bad decisions, this is sure to make any reader who has higher standards in dating cringe. Thus, even though Emily retains some of her independence and agency, the novel’s happy-for-now ending only serves to preserve the status quo—another win for male entitlement and heteropessimism.
Also, given that the faeries primarily exist as a field of academic curiosity for Emily, it is hard to not detect an unconscious undercurrent of white entitlement and saviourism in the narrative. While Emily appears to be coded as neurodivergent and her social anxiety is understandable, she nevertheless travels to a faraway foreign town and makes no effort to understand the customs of the locals—who are very likely to be different from what she’s accustomed to. Later on, when a queer couple is abducted by the fairies, she is eager to play detective and rescue them, not really out of concern for her fellow humans but because her search for them provides the perfect pretext to continue her research. Towards the end of the novel, she herself needs rescuing from the faeries—and Wendell and the community graciously arrive to save her. But given the selfishness of the main characters, this solidarity feels rather contrived. Although she is respectful in her interactions with fairies, there is never the sense that the Fae Folk actually welcome her incursion into their lives.
The very fact that Emily’s field of study—anthropology—even exists, that it affords her the opportunity to monetize her curiosity for professional acclaim, is a result of colonialism. Though the characters are all white here, and the faeries themselves are portrayed as an anthropomorphic but fundamentally unknowable species, research projects investigating different cultures and communities require a degree of mutual trust, openness, and consent—the ethics of which are never really delved into by this novel. Of course, the Tumblr academia and cottagecore aesthetics that this book very consciously tries to evoke have been occasionally criticized for being Eurocentric and, ultimately, conservative; and, like a lot of populist work, the novel’s engagement with aesthetics is only superficial. Its cozy fantasy leanings aren’t a problem in and of itself, but its popularity clearly points to certain trends in publishing, especially the valorization of escapist, feel-good narratives with unearned happy endings. This isn’t to dismiss escapism, but it is a reminder that escapism without self-awareness (or any interrogation of the power politics sustaining it) often leads to cultural erasure.
Still, the epistolary structure adds a fun layer to the text. Journal entries typically record real life, with all its contours and lack of closure, while a story plays around with elements to create momentum and meaning; thus, a fictionalized diary grapples with the task of imitating real life, while also delivering a story of some significance. Emily’s journal, filled with lengthy dialogues (apparently recorded verbatim), action scenes, formulaic pacing, and scenes carefully heading towards the climax, doesn’t quite evoke the sense of actually reading someone’s diary, but rather a typical first-person narration recounted in the past tense. Even when readers discover a surprise entry in Emily’s diary from Wendell, the form doesn’t entirely strengthen the story, especially in the latter chapters. To return to where we began, Walton’s Among Others used the form to better effect in simulating both the mundanity of everyday life and the ineffability of magic alongside the emotional growth of the diarist.
In conclusion, Emily Wilde’s Encylopaedia of Fairies is a lighthearted and enjoyable book; it is sure to appeal to lovers of romantic fairytales and slice-of-life narratives such as Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes (2022)—that is, readers who are keen for the next cozy fantasy read. Yet, although written with warmth and confidence, the novel could have perhaps engaged with the tradition of western faery stories more deeply … and further problematized some of its underlying themes.