Ptolemy's Gate
core novel 2005 The Bartimaeus Sequence
Record
| First published | 2005 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.28 (90,993 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 512 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780786818617 |
| Internal chronology | 6 |
Synopsis
Ptolemy's Gate closes out the original Bartimaeus trilogy, continuing directly from The Golem's Eye. Bartimaeus, now bound in London for far longer than any spirit should safely endure, is worn thin from repeated summonings, while Nathaniel has risen further within the magician-run government even as the strain of his double life as both official and reluctant ally to a spirit takes its toll. As a political conspiracy builds against the ruling magicians, threatening to topple the government that controls the city, Bartimaeus and Nathaniel find their long, fraught relationship tested as never before, even as the commoner Kitty Jones pursues her own path outside their world of magic. The book weaves together the trilogy's recurring perspectives as the conspiracy against the magical government reaches a head.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Bartimaeus Sequence
- Series: The Bartimaeus Sequence core; position 3 of 4 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Jonathan Stroud
Notes
- From the series record (The Bartimaeus Sequence): Core = the original trilogy (The Amulet of Samarkand 2003, The Golem's Eye 2004, Ptolemy's Gate 2005) plus The Ring of Solomon (2010), a full prequel novel set ~2,900 years earlier during King Solomon's reign and marketed as part of the same Sequence -- treated as Core by the same prequel-is-still-Core logic as The Chronicles of Damar's Hero and the Crown, not as separately-tiered companion material. internal chronology values reflect in-story order (Ring of Solomon first), not publication order. Registered as a quartet (4 books, closed set, no further Bartimaeus novels published or announced since 2010).
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series The Bartimaeus Sequence: position 3 of 4: previous The Golem's Eye (2004) · next The Ring of Solomon (2010)
- Internal chronology, within The Bartimaeus Sequence: position 4 of 4: previous The Golem's Eye (2004)
Sources
← The Bartimaeus Sequence dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.