Sorcery Shop: An Impossible Romance

A retired General and a wealthy Financier are nursing whiskeys at their London club when they meet Mr. Fry, a wizard of most unusual disposition who wears his socialism like a bright scarf. One magical door later, the two hardened capitalists find themselves in an England that ran on entirely different principles. Here, the means of production belong to everyone, poverty has been abolished, and a twinkling-eyed wizard waits to hear their verdict on this utopian experiment. Blatchford's 1907 novel is playful political satire dressed in jolly fantasy. It doesn't condescend to its characters or readers. Instead, it uses magic as a doorway to ask what if: what if the world could be reorganized? What would the skeptics say when confronted with the results? The novel endures because it asks hard questions with genuine warmth, and because its whimsy sneaks big ideas past your defenses.