The Lost Years of Merlin
core novel 1996 The Lost Years of Merlin
Record
| First published | 1996 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.97 (20,941 ratings, collected 2026-09-23) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780399230189 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
A young boy with no identity and no memory of his past washes ashore on the coast of Wales. Called Emrys, and living in a village under the wing of the mysterious Branwen, who claims to be his mother, the nameless boy learns the lore of such ancient peoples as the Celts and the Druids, and is haunted by his inability to remember his earlier life. After misadventures as his supernatural powers develop, he sets out to find his past and his identity, escaping to the mist-shrouded isle of Fincayra, an enchanted land between earth and sky that is being destroyed by blight. With its inhabitants to guide him, he learns that Fincayra's fate and his own quest are strangely intertwined, in a story drawing heavily on the Welsh Mabinogion. History will name him Merlin. The first book of T. A. Barron's series.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Lost Years of Merlin
- Series: The Lost Years of Merlin core; position 1 of 5 in the series' recorded order
- Author: T. A. Barron
Notes
- From the series record (The Lost Years of Merlin): The original, complete five-book pentalogy (1996-2000); the opening arc of the author's larger 13-book Merlin Saga. The later 'Merlin's Dragon' trilogy (2008-2011) and subsequent trilogies continue the wider saga but are a separate, later-published continuation, not part of this closed pentalogy, and are out of scope for 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 Lost Years of Merlin: position 1 of 5: next The Seven Songs of Merlin (1997)
Sources
- Lost Years of Merlin series - Wikipedia
- The Merlin Saga Guide (author's own site, PDF)
- Merlin Book 1: The Lost Years - Wikipedia
- Ace / Philomel (publisher description, via library catalogue)
- Publishers Weekly (review)
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