By Meghan Mazzaferro
Content warning: injury, injury detail, blood, self-harm, animal death, confinement, violence, kidnapping, psychological torture
Emily Wilde’s novel Encyclopaedia of Faeries is about a Cambridge professor and dryadologist’s first-hand account of her experiences studying a rare and elusive group of northern faeries while compiling the first complete encyclopedia of faeries. Unfortunately, the Hidden Ones, fae made of ice and cold that live in the north, are considered little more than myth, and Emily’s attempts to complete her research in a small northern town are complicated by struggles with the locals and a meddlesome fellow scholar. This story is told through Emily’s field notes as she recounts her experiences getting to know the northern locals, her encounters with several species of northern fae, her attempts at managing her meddlesome Cambridge colleague, Wendell Bambleby, and her own nagging desire to learn more about the mysterious faeries of the north.
Emily is a delightful character to follow; she’s blunt, harsh, and prefers books and research to people, and I really enjoyed being in her mind throughout this story. Bambleby acts as her perfect opposite, ridiculous, extravagant and affectionate, and the two of them make an excellent pair. I adored the way their relationship developed and how their personalities contrasted. All the side characters were also interesting and fleshed out, which could have been challenging with the story being told from Emily’s perspective, but Fawcett handled it expertly. The small northern town felt grounded and real, and I was invested in the people and their struggles, while also feeling a strong connection to Emily. This book, and our narrator, don’t shy away from the fact that Emily’s main motivation is academia. Most of her actions are motivated by her fascination with the fae, but Fawcett also does an excellent job of showing Emily’s concern for the locals of the area without Emily herself realizing just how involved she’s gotten in the lives of her research subjects. I admire how Fawcett captured the complexity of Emily’s character (and I also loved how Bambleby was there, seeing that complexity in her all along. He was delightful and melodramatic and fully reflected my love for Emily while reading).
I also adored the way the fae were presented in this book and seeing them through Emily’s eyes was captivating. Emily is a woman who is fascinated by faeries, and she depicts them in all their complexity and unpredictability. Some fae were helpful and generous, while others were ruthless and cruel, and even those who were friends followed a logic that humans can’t always understand. I really enjoyed how the fae were connected to stories and found the whole fae aspect of the story fascinating and delightful to read. The pacing of this book is slower, but that suited the field guide style and allowed a short read to feel full and complex, alluding to a much wider field of faerie studies that I wish existed.
I am a huge lover of the “memoir/research notes of a scientist studying a magical phenomenon” fantasy subgenre, so this book was perfect for me. The exploration of northern faeries was fascinating, the villagers were wonderful, and Emily and Bambleby were an absolute delight to read about. If you’re a fan of A Natural History of Dragons, or want to read a narrative book with the same spirit as the field guide in The Spiderwick Chronicles, I would definitely recommend checking this book out.