Spindle's End
core novel 2000 The Chronicles of Damar / Spindle's End
Record
| First published | 2000 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.82 (25,524 ratings, collected 2026-09-29) |
| Page count | 422 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780399234668 |
Synopsis
At the name-day of the infant princess Briar-Rose, every household in the kingdom has been invited to the celebration, and the wicked fairy Pernicia, feeling snubbed, presents the baby with her gift: a curse that on her twenty-first birthday she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into a poisoned sleep from which no one can wake her. That same day a young fairy, Katriona, carries the princess off in secret to the remote, damp corner of the country called the Gig, where she and her aunt raise the child as their own in the village of Foggy Bottom. Rosie grows up knowing nothing of her birth, a strapping, practical girl who hates her golden hair, prefers leather breeches to gowns and can talk to animals. But Pernicia, intent on revenge for a defeat four hundred years old, is still looking for her.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Chronicles of Damar / Spindle's End
- Series: not part of a registered series (standalone work within its universe)
- Author: Robin McKinley
Notes
- G. P. Putnam's Sons, May 2000. A retelling of Sleeping Beauty set in another country of the same world as Damar: the novel refers to Damar and to Harimad-sol as historical events, per its encyclopedic entry.
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 Chronicles of Damar / Spindle's End (standalone work): position 6 of 7: previous The Stone Fey (1998) · next A Pool in the Desert (2004)
Sources
← The Chronicles of Damar / Spindle's End dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.