The Last Enchantment
core novel 1979 The Merlin Trilogy
Record
| First published | 1979 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.18 (16,927 ratings, collected 2026-09-21) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780340239179 |
| Internal chronology | 3 |
Synopsis
Arthur has raised the sword and claimed his birthright as High King of Britain, determined to unite the many small kingdoms of the country, and now he sits upon his throne at Camelot with Merlin at his side as his most trusted adviser, while ambitious lords elsewhere in Britain still have designs on the crown. But Merlin is growing old and his sight is dimming. He knows that Mordred, the child of Arthur's unknowing union with his half-sister, the witch-queen Morgause, will be Arthur's downfall, yet he cannot see clearly enough to know why, or how, or when, and he spends much of his time travelling in disguise to watch Morgause's scheming. And he is distracted: his gifted young apprentice, Niniane, is more than she seems, and as Merlin teaches her to control her powers, he seems to lose his own. The third book of the Merlin trilogy.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Merlin Trilogy
- Series: The Merlin Trilogy core; position 3 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 3 of 4: previous The Hollow Hills (1973) · next The Wicked Day (1983)
Sources
- Wikipedia: Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy
- Wikipedia: The Crystal Cave
- Wikipedia: The Last Enchantment
- Wikipedia: The Hollow Hills
- Hachette UK (publisher)
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