At the end of the series, he sacrifices himself for her, setting up a melodramatic, tear-jerking final parting. That is more or less the version that is told in the BBC miniseries adaptation of the novel, where the romance between Strange and Arabella is the central storyline. This sounds like a somewhat familiar genre story about a woman who needs saving and the daring man who rescues her. Stephen is like a man who is forced to do nothing all day but watch Star Wars movies until he longs for the variety that would come from sitting at a desk and filling out insurance forms. He can’t walk down the street without being showered with gold or magic swords the gentleman with thistledown hair informs him, to his horror, that it is his fate to murder a king and take his place. The gentleman takes a particular liking to a butler named Stephen Black, whose life becomes a misery of miracles and a weariness of wonder.
Faced with a chance to advance his own career by bringing the wife of an important member of Parliament back to life, he summons the fairy known as “the gentleman with thistledown hair.” Said fairy proceeds to kidnap a number of mortals, including Strange’s wife Arabella, for his entertainment, sweeping them off to a fairy dance where they spin and bob and curtsy in enchanted finery forever.
Norrell’s worst sin in the book isn’t his dry-as-dust refusal of magic but the one instance where he decides to embrace it.
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