The Ultimate Fantasy Series Ranking

Author page

Cornelia Funke

4 universes Last reviewed 2026-08-30

Cornelia Funke was born December 10, 1958, in Dorsten, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and as a child aspired to become an astronaut or pilot. She studied pedagogy at the University of Hamburg and worked for three years as a social worker with disadvantaged children before becoming a book illustrator. She published her first story at age twenty-eight and went on to become one of Germany's most successful children's authors. Her breakout international works include The Thief Lord (2000), Dragon Rider (1997), and the Inkheart trilogy (2003–2007), a series about a bookbinder whose reading aloud brings fictional characters to life. Later works include the Reckless series, the Ghosthunters series, and The Book No One Ever Read (2017). Her honors include the Mildred L. Batchelder Award and Corine Literature Prize in 2003, the BookSense Children's Literature Award and Book of the Year distinctions, the Roswitha Prize in 2008, the German Youth Literature Awards Lifetime Achievement in 2020, and recognition as a Royal Society of Literature International Writer in 2022. She married printer Rolf Frahm in 1979, and the couple had two children, Anna and Ben. After twenty-four years in Hamburg, Funke relocated to Los Angeles in 2005; her husband died of cancer in 2006. In 2021 she moved again, settling in Tuscany, Italy.

Universe(s)

Inkheart

  • Core Canon books: 3
  • Current rank: #503 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.94
  • Award recognitions: 1 honor mention

The Thief Lord

  • Core Canon books: 1
  • Current rank: #422 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.99
  • Award recognitions: None recorded

Dragon Rider

  • Core Canon books: 2
  • Current rank: #404 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 4.00
  • Award recognitions: None recorded

Reckless

  • Core Canon books: 4
  • Current rank: #562 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.90
  • Award recognitions: None recorded

Books

Aggregate across all universes

These are separate, unrelated universes; the totals below are plain sums of already-published per-universe facts, never a blended or averaged score across them. See each universe's own figures above.

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