House of Many Ways
core novel 2008 Howl's Moving Castle
Record
| First published | 2008 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.05 (52,673 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 404 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780061477973 |
| Internal chronology | 3 |
Synopsis
House of Many Ways, a 2008 novel and the third book in the Castle series, centers on Charmain Baker, a sheltered teenager asked to housesit for her great-uncle William, the Royal Wizard of Norland, while he is away receiving magical treatment for an illness. Charmain quickly discovers that his modest-looking cottage is far stranger inside than out, its single front door opening onto a shifting range of different rooms and places depending on how it is used. While coping with the house's unpredictable magic, an unruly dog, and an awkward apprentice wizard named Peter, Charmain is drawn into a wider problem facing the kingdom: the royal treasury has gone missing, and with it hope of finding a legendary object known as the Elfgift, pulling the reluctant, book-loving Charmain into a search that reveals her own untested magical ability.
Where it sits
- Universe: Howl's Moving Castle
- Series: Howl's Moving Castle core; position 3 of 3 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Diana Wynne Jones
Notes
- From the series record (Howl's Moving Castle): Diana Wynne Jones's own 'Castle'/'World of Howl' trilogy, sharing the kingdom of Ingary and recurring characters (Howl, Sophie, Calcifer, Wizard Suliman) across all 3 books, though each has a largely independent plot and protagonist. Confirmed a SEPARATE continuity from Jones's Chrestomanci series (a different multiverse-hopping premise with no shared characters, setting, or crossover) -- not conflated per this admission's own scope check.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series Howl's Moving Castle: position 3 of 3: previous Castle in the Air (1990)
Sources
← Howl's Moving Castle dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.