Shadow of Night

Shadow of Night (2012) is a historical fantasy romance novel by Deborah Harkness, and the second book in the All Souls Trilogy, preceded by A Discovery of Witches (2011) and followed by The Book of Life (2014). A prequel novel, Time’s Convert (2019), follows the origin story of Matthew’s son Marcus, who is a minor character in Shadow of Night.

Harkness holds a PhD from the University of California, Davis and teaches early modern European history and the history of science. Harkness’s personal expertise lends Diana Bishop’s similar profession an air of detail and authenticity, even as the novel is intermingled with elements of the magical and supernatural. This is perhaps most pronounced in Shadow of Night, where Matthew and Diana travel to early modern Europe, encounter historical figures, and conflict with early modern European social norms. They navigate gender roles in different historical periods and countries, and complicated matters concerning the nature of time, science, and superstition.

This guide refers to the 2012 Penguin paperback.

Content Warning: The source text contains mentions of historical sexism, marriage of an underage girl to an adult man, miscarriage, death by suicide, recreational drug use, and rape.

Note: Since the word vampire was first used in the 1700s, Matthew and Diana only use the word in private. When Matthew and Diana are in England, they use the word wearh, and in France they say manjasang. The guide preserves the word “vampire” outside of direct quotes for continuity.

Plot Summary

Diana Bishop and Matthew de Clermont arrive in England in late 1590 to look for the unaltered version of Ashmole 782, a powerful manuscript that holds the history of all magical creatures. Diana meets the School of Night, a prestigious group of authors and scientists made up of daemons and humans. Matthew, known to them as Matthew Roydon, is the only vampire. The group also contains characters based on real-life historical figures, including the playwright Christopher “Kit” Marlowe, who immediately dislikes Diana, and explorer Sir Walter Raleigh, the astronomer Thomas Harriot, poet and dramatist George Chapman, and nobleman Earl Henry Percy, who all like her. She also meets Matthew’s nephew, Gallowglass. Diana struggles to act like a 16th-century woman. She learns that Matthew has many secrets, including working as a spy for Queen Elizabeth and sitting in the Congregation. Diana’s magic is changing: She accidentally shrivels fruit and plants and can see time unspooling. Diana seeks a tutor, but nearby witch hunts make it difficult. Soon, witch hunters come to investigate Diana. They receive a summons from Matthew’s stepfather Philippe and decide to leave England for France.

In the 21st century, an archivist finds an unattributed book that Diana used to practice her writing.

Back in 1590, Matthew meets Philippe, who is also a vampire, although he is dead in the 21st century. Philippe doesn’t initially approve of Matthew and Diana’s union: He does not think Diana truly understands Matthew. At Philippe’s urging, Diana learns about the death of Matthew’s human wife and child in the sixth century, and Matthew’s subsequent attempt to die by suicide, which was when Philippe’s wife Ysabeau turned Matthew into a vampire. Diana also learns Matthew killed Philippe—upon Philippe’s request—in the 1940s and bears tremendous guilt. Philippe intuits this and forgives Matthew. After putting Diana through a series of tests, Philippe makes Diana his “blood-sworn” daughter and hosts an official wedding for them. Queen Elizabeth summons Matthew to England.

In the 21st century, Ysabeau finds a hidden message from Philippe in her library, relaying his encounter with Matthew and Diana in 1590; he thinks they will conceive a child.

When Matthew and Diana arrive in England, they stay in London because of escalating witch trials in the north. Diana realizes she’s pregnant. She meets Mary Sidney and helps her with alchemical experiments. Diana draws the attention of the city’s creatures, particularly a powerful, connected vampire named Hubbard who has a tenuous truce with the de Clermonts. Hubbard reluctantly agrees to connect them with a witch to tutor Diana. They meet a teen witch named Annie and her aunt, Susanna Norman—an ancestor of Diana’s friend Sophie Norman. Susanna’s elder Goody Alsop says Diana is a “weaver” who can create spells. They recruit a witch who can control the elements to help tutor Diana. This “gathering” helps Diana unlock her familiar, a firedrake, as well as uncover her control over life and death. Meanwhile, Diana miscarries, and she and Matthew look after Annie and an orphan named Jack. Diana continues to help Mary, who makes an alchemical creation called an arbor Dianæ with Matthew and Diana’s blood. Diana’s two communities of women help her learn both magic and alchemy.

Matthew and Diana get their first lead on the whereabouts of Ashmole 782: It is in the court of Emperor Rudolf II, with an alchemist called Edward Kelley, who stole it from John Dee. With Queen Elizabeth’s backing, they go to Rudolf’s court. Rudolf is enamored with Diana and aggressively courts her. She manipulates his attentions to see the manuscript. Using her weaver’s powers, she sees that the manuscript is connected by double-helix threads to all the creatures who encounter it. It is made of the skin, blood, and bones of creatures. Matthew, Diana, and Gallowglass steal the book from Rudolf’s court, but Kelley rips out three pages before they can take it.

In the 21st century, Marcus finds two 16th-century miniatures of Matthew and Diana. Peter Knox, who is hunting Diana, finds a letter written by Rabbi Loew, who met Diana and Matthew in Prague. The letter details the theft of the Ashmole manuscript from Rudolf’s court.

Back in London, Diana is kidnapped by Kit, who has recruited the help of Matthew’s sister Louisa, who is in a blood rage. Matthew saves Diana and tortures Kit and Louisa in Bedlam until Diana convinces him to release them, resisting his own blood rage. Diana is pregnant with twins. They know they must return to their own time soon. Diana is shocked to encounter her own father, Stephen, who also timewalks. They spend time together but do not connect on the level Diana wants to, though Stephen leaves her a heartfelt note acknowledging his own death and his love for her. Diana says her goodbyes to her gathering and gives Hubbard a drop of her blood in return for his pledge that he’ll look after Annie and Jack.

Diana hears Thomas discussing his invention of the telescope. She gets his name and the date engraved on the telescope so that he will get credit for his invention in the future. Diana and Matthew sort out the rest of their affairs and timewalk back.

In the 21st century, news breaks about Thomas Harriot’s spyglass being discovered, which rewrites the history of when the object was invented. In Matthew and Diana’s absence, Marcus has convened a “Conventicle” of humans, daemons, and vampires at Sept-Tours, the de Clermont family seat, to begin to resist the Congregation.

Matthew and Diana arrive at the Bishop House. Diana doesn’t know that Sarah is at Sept-Tours or that her Aunt Sarah’s partner, Emily, died. They make their way to Sept-Tours, where they meet Ysabeau, Sophie, and Sarah.

Back in the 16th century, Kit dies, and Hubbard makes Annie a servant to William “Will” Shakespeare. Will alters a love lyric Kit wrote about Matthew, turning it into his famous lines about the “school of night” in Love’s Labour’s Lost.