Cover of The Ring of Solomon

The Ring of Solomon

core novel 2010 The Bartimaeus Sequence

Record

First published2010
Original language EN
Work typenovel
Canon statuscore
Reader rating4.21 (32,526 ratings, collected 2026-09-14)
Page count398
First-edition ISBN9781423123729
Internal chronology1

Synopsis

The Ring of Solomon is a prequel to the Bartimaeus trilogy, set some three thousand years earlier in the court of King Solomon. It follows the djinni Bartimaeus in the service of the magician Khaba, one of seventeen powerful magicians bound to Solomon's court, where the king's authority rests on a magic ring of immense power. The story also follows Asmira, a young guard from the rival kingdom of Sheba, sent on a mission connected to the ring and Solomon's rule. As Bartimaeus is drawn into the schemes surrounding Khaba and the court, and Asmira's path converges with his, the story explores the ancient origins of the magical world later inherited by Nathaniel and his contemporaries.

Where it sits

Notes

  • From the series record (The Bartimaeus Sequence): Core = the original trilogy (The Amulet of Samarkand 2003, The Golem's Eye 2004, Ptolemy's Gate 2005) plus The Ring of Solomon (2010), a full prequel novel set ~2,900 years earlier during King Solomon's reign and marketed as part of the same Sequence -- treated as Core by the same prequel-is-still-Core logic as The Chronicles of Damar's Hero and the Crown, not as separately-tiered companion material. internal chronology values reflect in-story order (Ring of Solomon first), not publication order. Registered as a quartet (4 books, closed set, no further Bartimaeus novels published or announced since 2010).

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 Bartimaeus Sequence: position 4 of 4: previous Ptolemy's Gate (2005)
  • Internal chronology, within The Bartimaeus Sequence: position 1 of 4: next The Amulet of Samarkand (2003)

Sources

← The Bartimaeus Sequence dossier · All universes

Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.