The Owl Service
core novel 1967 The Owl Service
Record
| First published | 1967 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.66 (8,286 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 219 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780007127894 |
Synopsis
The Owl Service, published by Alan Garner in 1967, is set in an isolated valley in Wales where three teenagers, Alison, her stepbrother Roger, and Gwyn, the son of the family's housekeeper, are spending a summer holiday together in a house owned by Alison's family. Their holiday takes an uncanny turn when Alison discovers an old dinner service tucked away in the attic, its floral pattern revealing itself, on closer inspection, to also form the shape of owls. Investigating the strange plates draws the three teenagers into the pull of an ancient Welsh legend centered on Blodeuwedd, a woman made of flowers and transformed into an owl, whose old story begins to reassert itself through the three young people in ways none of them fully understand or control.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Owl Service
- Series: not part of a registered series (standalone work within its universe)
- Author: Alan Garner
Awards (verified)
- Carnegie Medal for Writing, 1967: won; Confirmed directly via the CILIP/Yoto Carnegie Medal's own official winners archive (carnegies.co.uk), which lists "1967 Alan Garner, The Owl Service, Collins". A widely repeated secondary claim (Wikipedia and others) that the novel also won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize could not be independently corroborated against a primary source and is deliberately NOT registered here.
Notes
- A retelling of the Welsh legend of Blodeuwedd (from the Mabinogion's Fourth Branch), a woman made of flowers and transformed into an owl for betrayal: three teenagers in a remote Welsh valley find themselves compelled to re-enact the ancient love-triangle tragedy across generations.
Sources
← The Owl Service dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.