The Black Cauldron
core novel 1965 The Chronicles of Prydain
Record
| First published | 1965 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.13 (67,857 ratings, collected 2026-09-13) |
| Page count | 182 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780805080490 |
| Internal chronology | 2 |
Synopsis
The Black Cauldron takes place roughly a year after The Book of Three, as Taran and his companions set out on a mission to find and destroy the Black Cauldron, a dark artifact that the dark lord Arawn uses to create an unstoppable army of undead Cauldron-Born warriors. Their search takes them into the dangerous Marshes of Morva, where they must deal with three unpredictable witches who may hold the key to the cauldron's destruction, and brings them into conflict with Arawn's Huntsmen of Annuvin along the way. The stakes of the quest are made plain from the outset: if the cauldron is not stopped, Arawn's forces will be able to raise an army that nothing in Prydain can withstand.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Chronicles of Prydain
- Series: The Chronicles of Prydain core; position 2 of 5 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Lloyd Alexander
Awards (verified)
- Newbery Medal, 1966: honor; Honor Book, not the Medal winner; that year's winner was I, Juan de Pareja (Elizabeth Borton de Trevino). Explicitly distinguished per the official ALA winners/honors list.
Notes
- From the series record (The Chronicles of Prydain): First-edition publisher Holt, Rinehart and Winston (New York) for all 5 novels.
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 The Chronicles of Prydain: position 2 of 5: previous The Book of Three (1964) · next The Castle of Llyr (1966)
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Prydain
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Cauldron_(novel)
- American Library Association, Newbery Medal records
← The Chronicles of Prydain dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.