On a tiny farm at the edge of the miserable village of East Grasby, Isabella Nagg is trying to get on with her tiny, miserable existence.
Isabella and the Pot of Basil by William Holman Hunt, 1868
Isabella, or the Pot of Basil is a narrative poem by John Keats adapted from Boccaccio's Decameron. It tells the story of a young woman whose family wants her to marry “some high noble and his olive trees,” but she falls for another.
Oliver Darkshire transports that tragic tale of passion and grief to the dark fantasy world of Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil. Isabella and Henric Nagg have been married for so long, they may have forgotten why they married in the first place. The only thing keeping them together is spite. “There was Mrs. Nagg, who fixed the problems Mr. Nagg made, and there was Isabella, who resented him for it.” Isabella talks to her favorite houseplant, the pot of basil on the windowsill, because otherwise she would go days at a time without saying a single word. When Henric steals a spell book from the local wizard, his wife, Isabella, must fix the problem. She knows she must return the book, but… Her gaze was drawn back time and again to the book on the table. Eventually, she decided to look inside. A peek couldn’t hurt. And then she’d return it. “There’s no harm in it,” she assured the pot of basil. “No harm ever came of looking.” Isabella had always been a person things happened to, not a person who happened to other people. Perhaps it was time for that to change. Isabella’s companion on this journey of discovery is the Grimalkin, which insists it is not a cat, but very much looks like one. The Grimalkin was the wizard’s companion and knows how to read the magical volumes of The Household Gramayre, which has been written by every wizard who ever owned it. “Some of these languages are dead…and a few of them are even undead, so don’t turn your back on them.” The services of the Grimalkin are bound to the current owner of the Household Gramayre, which is now Isabella. 
Isabella Nagg and the Grimalkin (illustration by Sophie Grunnet)
“Are you going to follow me everywhere?” she asked it, trying to sound annoyed but secretly glad for the company. She already felt a little better under the open sky…Isabella Nagg was alive. There is a hidden depth to all the characters in this story, even the grumpy Grimalkin who delivers cutting wisdom along with reluctant heroism. The author’s real-life history as a rare bookseller serves him well as the novel’s pages are filled with annotations and footnotes that thicken this grim fairy tale like the porridge Isabella serves. The novel’s magical elements unfold naturally as Isabella’s confidence grows with her newfound abilities and she discovers that: “Once you glimpsed the future, the future saw you in turn, and there was no way of changing the outcome.” Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil weaves a spell that lingers after its final page, with the promise of more magic beyond the village of East Grasby. Oliver Darkshire is the author of Once Upon a Tome, his memoir about working as a rare bookseller at Henry Sotheran Ltd. in London, England. Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil is his first novel. See more Books to Read: The Reader on the 6.27 No Time to Spare Read This for Inspiration Vivian Maier Developed Jane Austen: A Life 
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