The Crystal Cave
core novel 1970 The Merlin Trilogy
Record
| First published | 1970 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.13 (48,970 ratings, collected 2026-09-21) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780340128725 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
Fifth-century Britain is a country of chaos and division after the Roman withdrawal, a world ravaged by war. This is the world of young Merlin, the illegitimate son of a princess of South Wales who will not reveal his father's identity. Small and neglected, Merlin must disguise his intelligence, and hide his occasional ability to know things before they happen, in order to keep himself safe. Exploring the countryside near his home, he stumbles across a cave filled with books and papers and hiding a room lined with crystals: the home of Galapas, who becomes his tutor and friend, teaches him to understand the world around him and to harness the power of the crystal cave to see the future, and bequeaths the cave to him. Against a background of invasion and imprisonment, wars and conquest, Merlin emerges into manhood and accepts his role in the coming of King Arthur. The first book of Mary Stewart's Arthurian Saga.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Merlin Trilogy
- Series: The Merlin Trilogy core; position 1 of 4 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Mary Stewart
Notes
- From the series record (The Merlin Trilogy): Widely known by the title "trilogy" for its first three, Merlin-narrated novels (The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment); The Wicked Day is a fourth novel in the same continuity, retelling the same events from Mordred's point of view, and is registered here as Core Canon alongside the original three rather than left out, since it completes the same single continuous story. A later, more loosely connected novel, The Prince and the Pilgrim (1995), is set in the same world but is not part of Merlin's own narrative and is left out of this admission.
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 Merlin Trilogy: position 1 of 4: next The Hollow Hills (1973)
Sources
- Wikipedia: Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy
- Wikipedia: The Crystal Cave
- Wikipedia: The Last Enchantment
- Wikipedia: The Hollow Hills
- Hodder & Stoughton (publisher description)
- Hodder (publisher description, via Harry Hartog)
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