Thursday Next is the protagonist in a series of comic fantasy, alternate history mystery novels by the British author Jasper Fforde.
She was introduced for the first time in Fforde's first published novel, The Eyre Affair, released on 19 July 2001 by Hodder & Stoughton.
In the novel's parallel universe, England is a republic, with George Formby as its first president, elected following the success of Operation Sea Lion (the mooted Nazi invasion of Great Britain), occupation, and liberation.
In this universe, genetic engineering is advanced, allowing Thursday to have a pet dodo – a rare Version 1.2 – Pickwick.
Re-engineered mammoths can cause damage to local gardens if in their path, and there is a Neanderthal rights movement, given the resurrection of this kindred branch of human evolution.
The Goliath Corporation is a megalithic company that appears to make many of the goods in this alternate world and also acts as a de facto shadow government, being able to take over important police investigations.
The importance that literature has in this alternate England is reflected in the fact that so many people want to change their name to that of famous authors that some must be numbered, by law- e.g. John Milton 432.
In addition, the line between literature and reality becomes increasingly thin, allowing characters in the books and those in 'real life' to jump in and out of novels.
This also happens to other classic novels: Uriah Heep becomes the obsequious, and generally insincere character we know, due to an accident inside the book world, and Thursday's uncle Mycroft becomes Sherlock Holmes's brother.
The world of fiction has its own police force – Jurisfiction – to ensure that plots in books continue to run smoothly with each reading.
Thursday juggles her work in Swindon and the world of fiction, battling the machinations of the insidious Goliath Corporation, members of the Hades family and other evils at every turn.
Her father, Colonel Next, is a rogue member of the ChronoGuard (SpecOps 12), a temporal policing agency, and officially does not exist, having been eradicated by his former bosses (using the simple but effective method of a timely knock on the door just before his conception; despite this, his children and grandchild still exist, likely due to Thursday's son Friday Next being the eventual head of the ChronoGuard, and/or the extensive powers of Colonel Next himself).
Thursday has two brothers, Anton, who died in the Crimean War, and Joffy, who is a minister for the Global Standard Deity (GSD).
Consisting of 52 levels total, the Great Library acts as a lobby of sorts for the BookWorld and serves as a public gateway onto any book ever created.
26 of the upper levels, organized according to the author's last name, are laid out in a cross shape, with 4 rows of bookcases radiating from a central point.
Containing needed Jursifiction devices and a link back to the Great Library as well as other popular works of fiction, the TravelBook also acts as a guide to the BookWorld and is password protected to each individual member.
Agents deemed appropriate are also given the password to an unpublished work that acts as a bestiary and a research faculty for BookWorld creatures.
Adjective-creating creatures and maggot-like in appearance, bookworms act as portable thesauri, changing common adjectives into others (for example "nice" into "amiable" or "attractive").
Thus (according to Bradshaw's BookWorld Companion), "Courier Bold is the traditional language of those in the support industries such as within the Well of Lost Plots, and Lorem Ipsum is the gutter slang of the underworld—useful to have a few phrases in case you get into trouble in Horror or Noir.
[6] While Fforde seems to have written the page with his tongue in his cheek several new streets in the Orchid Vale area of Swindon have the names of literary characters that appear in the Thursday Next series.