Diana Wynne Jones (1934–2011) read English at St Anne's College, Oxford, where she sat in lectures given by both C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, and graduated in 1956. Over the four decades that followed she wrote more than forty fantasy books of her own — magic, parallel worlds and a dry, sidelong sense of humour on very nearly every page.
If you only know her from Howl's Moving Castle — the book behind Hayao Miyazaki's 2004 Studio Ghibli film — then you have a good deal of pleasure ahead of you. Her best books are warm and wickedly clever: enchanted houses, contrary fire demons, and ordinary people muddling competently through the impossible.
Most readers come wanting two things: which book to read first, and what order to read her in. The short answer is that her two great sequences — the World of Howl and the Chrestomanci books — are loose companions rather than tight serials, so almost any of them will let you in. We've set out the usual order below.
On our shelves
WhimsicalSlow-Burn Romance
Howl’s Moving Castle
Sophie is turned into an old woman by a witch, shrugs, and goes to keep house for a vain, slippery wizard whose castle clanks across the moors on chicken legs. It's all bickering, doors that open onto four different places, and a fire demon who does the cooking. Read it when you want to be looked after and gently teased.
Where to start
Start with Howl's Moving Castle (1986). It's her most famous and most-loved novel, completely self-contained, and the source of the 2004 Studio Ghibli film — the warmest, funniest, lowest-commitment way in, and the one we keep on the shelf.
Diana Wynne Jones’s books
Sophie Hatter is turned into an old woman by the Witch of the Waste and goes to keep house in the moving castle of the vain wizard Howl. The book behind Miyazaki's 2004 film, and the one we stock.
On our shelves →
A companion novel told in Arabian Nights style: a young carpet merchant named Abdullah comes by a magic flying carpet and a thoroughly contrary djinn, and crosses paths with Howl and Sophie in disguise.
Charmain Baker is left minding a great-uncle's enchanted house whose single door opens onto many different places. Howl, Sophie and the fire demon Calcifer turn up to help untangle the mystery.
The first Chrestomanci book: orphaned Cat Chant and his witch sister Gwendolen are taken to Chrestomanci Castle, home of the enchanter who governs the use of magic across worlds. It won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize.
A Chrestomanci prequel: a boy who can walk into other worlds in his dreams discovers he has nine lives — the sign that he is the next Chrestomanci.
A warm, comic Chrestomanci tale set in an Italian-style city-state, where two feuding families of spell-makers must set their Romeo-and-Juliet quarrel aside against a hidden enchanter.
The gentle wizard Derk is press-ganged into playing the villainous 'Dark Lord' for parties of tourists touring his world. A little sharper than her cosiest books, very funny, and winner of the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award.
Good questions
Howl's Moving Castle. It's her best-known novel, reads perfectly well on its own, and is the source of the Studio Ghibli film — the gentlest place to begin.
They're loose companions set in the same world rather than a tight trilogy, each largely standalone. Publication order reads best: Howl's Moving Castle (1986), then Castle in the Air (1990), then House of Many Ways (2008), where Howl, Sophie and Calcifer return.
They're usually read in publication order, and each works on its own: Charmed Life (1977), The Magicians of Caprona (1980), Witch Week (1982), The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988), the Mixed Magics collection (2000), Conrad's Fate (2005) and The Pinhoe Egg (2006). The internal chronology differs — The Lives of Christopher Chant is set earliest — but publication order is the common recommendation.
Stay in the same world with Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways, then try the Chrestomanci books, beginning with Charmed Life, for the same comic, enchanted-house magic.
She wrote fantasy for children and young adults, but the wit and invention reward grown-up readers just as happily; we'd hand any of these to a reader of any age.
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