The Dark Is Rising

The Dark Is Rising Sequence

Omnibus edition front cover
Author	Susan Cooper
Cover artist	Oliver Burston
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Children's fantasy novels
Publisher	Random House Children's Books
Publication date	1984
Media type	Print (trade ppb)
Pages	786 pp
ISBN
OCLC	50597816

The Dark Is Rising is a series of five contemporary fantasy novels for older children and young adults, written by the English author Susan Cooper and published 1965 to 1977. The Dark Is Rising, the second novel in the series, was published in 1973.

The series is sometimes called The Dark Is Rising Sequence, which is the title of its UK omnibus edition (first 1984) and its US boxed set edition (first 1986). It depicts a struggle between forces of good and evil called the Light and the Dark and is based on Arthurian legends, Celtic mythology, and Norse mythology. Both magical and ordinary children are prominent throughout the series. It was inaugurated in 1965 with the U.K. publication of Over Sea, Under Stone by Jonathan Cape. The sequels were published 1973 to 1977, almost simultaneously in the U.K. and the U.S. Volume four, The Grey King (1975), won both the Newbery Medal, recognizing the year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children", and the inaugural Welsh Tir na n-Og Award for English-language books with Welsh background. The concluding Silver on the Tree (1977) also won the annual Tir na n-Og Award.

The novel The Dark Is Rising features Will Stanton, age 11, who learns on that birthday that he is an "Old One" and thus destined to wield the powers of The Light in the ancient struggle with The Dark. In the U.S. it was a Newbery Honor Book (runner up for the medal). Its 2007 film adaptation, titled The Seeker in America and The Dark Is Rising in Britain, made significant plot and character divergences from the book.

Simon, Jane, and Barney Drew: The main characters of the first novel, the Drew siblings, are human children who have known Merriman Lyon as their "Great Uncle Merry" for years. While on holiday in Cornwall, they get caught up in the battle between the Light and the Dark and join the search for the Things of Power. In the first novel, Over Sea, Under Stone, they search for the legendary Grail of King Arthur. They also appear in the third book, Greenwitch, and the last book in the series, Silver on the Tree. In the poem featured prominently throughout The Dark Is Rising, they are the ones referred to as "three from the track". Their last name is linked with Will Stanton's in British paleohistory; see Stanton Drew stone circles.