Howl's Moving Castle

Howl's Moving Castle

Front cover of first edition (US)
Author	Diana Wynne Jones
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	Howl's Castle
Genre	Young-adult fantasy novel
Publisher	Greenwillow Books (US), Methuen (November 1986)
Publication date	April 1986
Media type	Print (hardcover)
Pages	212 pp (first edition)
ISBN
OCLC	12582402
LC Class	PZ7.J684 Hp 1986
Followed by	Castle in the Air

Howl's Moving Castle is a fantasy novel by British author Diana Wynne Jones, first published in 1986 by Greenwillow Books of New York. It was a runner-up for the annual Boston Globe–Horn Book Award and it won the Phoenix Award twenty years later, recognizing its rise from relative obscurity. In 2004 it was adapted as an animated film of the same name, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Howl's Moving Castle is the first novel in the series of books called the Howl Series. This series also includes Castle in the Air, published in 1990, and House of Many Ways, published in 2008. WorldCat reports that Howl's Moving Castle is the author's work most widely held in participating libraries, followed by its first sequel Castle in the Air.

For the idea Jones "very much" thanked "a boy in a school I was visiting", whose name she had noted but lost and forgotten. He had "asked me to write a book titled The Moving Castle Comes to Life."

A young woman named Sophie Hatter is the eldest of three sisters living in the town of Market Chipping in the magical kingdom of Ingary, where many fairytale tropes are accepted ways of life, including that the eldest of three will never be successful. She is very deft with the needle and makes the most beautiful hats and dresses. She is able to unknowingly talk life into objects. As the eldest, she is resigned to the "fact" that she will have no chance of finding her fortune, accepting that she will have a dull life running the family hat shop; until she is turned into an old crone by the powerful Witch of the Waste, who was offended that a stray memory of Sophie's younger sister interfered with her finding Howl, and mistakes Sophie for her. Sophie leaves the shop and finds work as a cleaning lady for the notorious Wizard Howl, famed in her town for eating the hearts of beautiful young women. Sophie strikes a bargain with Howl's resident fire-demon, Calcifer: if Sophie can break the contract between Howl and Calcifer, then Calcifer will return Sophie to her original youthful teenage form. Part of the contract, however, stipulates that neither Howl nor Calcifer can disclose the main clause of the contract to any third party. Sophie tries to guess the specifics of the contract, while Calcifer supplies frequent hints which Sophie usually does not pick up.