The Dark Portal
core novel 1989 The Deptford Mice
Record
| First published | 1989 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.83 (2,652 ratings, collected 2026-10-21) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9781587171123 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
In a borough of London called Deptford there lived a community of mice. An old empty house was their home, and in it they fashioned a comfortable life for themselves, undisturbed by people, traps or cats. But something is lurking deep beneath the city, in the sewers, where the rats worship Jupiter, a living god whom no one has ever seen beyond his blazing red eyes. When Albert Brown is drawn into the sewers by dark enchantments on the grille in the house's basement, his daughter Audrey, looking for her missing father, ventures into the tunnels with her friends and family, among them the city mouse Piccadilly and the grizzled seafarer Thomas Triton, to face Jupiter's army of rats. Robin Jarvis's debut, runner-up for the 1989 Smarties Prize.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Deptford Mice
- Series: The Deptford Mice core; position 1 of 3 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Robin Jarvis
Awards (verified)
- Nestlé Smarties Book Prize, 1989: finalist; Runner-up.
Notes
- ISBN recorded is the SeaStar Books US edition (2000).
- From the series record (The Deptford Mice): Audrey Brown and the mice of Deptford against the rat god Jupiter.
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 Deptford Mice: position 1 of 3: next The Crystal Prison (1989)
- Internal chronology, within The Deptford Mice: position 1 of 6: next The Alchymist's Cat (1991)
Sources
- Wikipedia (The Deptford Mice)
- Wikipedia (The Dark Portal)
- Pushkin Children's Books (publisher description, via Eason)
← The Deptford Mice dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.