2025/015: A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians — H G Parry

The National Assembly of Magicians had risen up, exactly as Robespierre had hoped. They had issued a proclamation declaring it the right of all citizens to be free to practice their own magic: a Declaration of the Rights of Magicians. Within a day, the Temple Church in Paris had been stormed... [p. 179]

Having enjoyed Parry's more recent The Scholar and the Last Fairy Door, I bought A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians when it was on offer: I love it, and am currently reading the second book in the duology, A Radical Act of Free Magic -- which means I don't yet know how the overall arc resolves.

Set mostly between 1783 and 1794, this is a novel about an Age of Enlightenment complicated by magic. Briefly, this is a world where some individuals have magical powers, connected with but not reliant on heritage; generally, aristocrats are allowed to use magic and commoners are not; 'blood magic' (a combination of mesmerism and vampirism, apparently uniquely European) is banned, a ban enforced by the Knights Templar who slew the monstrous Vampire Kings who ruled Europe centuries before, as well as every blood magician they could find. 

There are three strands to the novel: William Wilberforce and William Pitt the Younger, trying to abolish the slave trade and (in Pitt's case) come to terms with magical heritage; Fina, an escaped slave in Jamaica, fleeing to Toussaint L'Ouverture's rebel army; and Camille Desmoulins and Maximilien Robespierre working towards revolution in Paris. Each of these subplots is as much concerned with friendship as with magic or revolution. Parry's version of history adheres closely to our own, but with additional magical elements to amplify the horror: the guillotine's victims are transformed into an army of the dead; the slaves in the colonies are kept obedient by a potion that renders them unable to speak or move of their own volition.

And behind the slave revolt, the Revolution and even the repeated failure of British attempts to abolish the slave trade, there's a hidden force, known to Robespierre as his benefactor, to Pitt as his enemy, and to Fina simply as 'the stranger'.

This is a long, slow, dense novel, and I found it a compelling read: the blend of fantasy and history felt credible, and I very much enjoyed the friendships, especially that between Pitt and Wilberforce. I also found myself warming more to Robespierre than ever before. Though the history and worldbuilding are quite lightly sketched -- we learn little of the world outside Britain, France and Haiti -- there are plenty of little details, such as the laburnham-and-silver panels in the House of Commoners that respond to the speeches with sound and harmony, which make this world feel real.

I'd have liked more female characters, but can understand their absence. (There are more women in A Radical Act of Free Magic, including Pitt's awesome niece Hester Stanhope.) And I did find some of the scenes of Parliament rather long-winded. But this, for me, was an utterly splendid read, and the very first thing I did after finishing it was to buy the second volume of what's effectively one long narrative.