The Ultimate Fantasy Series Ranking

Research dossier

Newford

#1844.14 adjusted 4.13 for sample size in the official ranking · full ranking

Books 3 books Status Ongoing 1990–present Reading commitment Low Charles de Lint Last reviewed 2026-08-21

Overview

Newford is Charles de Lint's fictional North American city, the setting for many urban fantasy novels and short story collections that mix folklore and myth into modern life, treating spirits, shapeshifters, and half-remembered old-world magic as present just beneath the surface of an ordinary contemporary city. Core novels such as The Dreaming Place (1990), Memory and Dream (1994), and The Onion Girl (2001) follow different, sometimes overlapping, casts of artists, musicians, and street kids whose lives intersect with Newford's hidden mythic layer, often through the recurring character of Jilly Coppercorn, a painter able to see what others cannot. De Lint is widely credited as one of the writers who helped define modern urban fantasy as a genre distinct from portal or secondary-world fantasy, grounding his supernatural elements in specific folk traditions -- Celtic, Indigenous North American, and others -- rather than inventing wholesale new mythologies, and Newford itself functions less as a single continuous plot than as a shared setting revisited across dozens of loosely connected works.

Urban fantasy, Mythic fantasy · For Adult

Core Canon: Reading Order (3 works) counts toward ranking

Newford, core novels Charles de Lint

WorkYearCanonRating
Cover of The Dreaming PlaceThe Dreaming Place1990core3.92 (1,798 ratings)
Cover of Memory and DreamMemory and Dream1994core4.20 (3,616 ratings)
Cover of The Onion GirlThe Onion Girl2001core4.17 (7,467 ratings)

Widely-cited central novels of the fictional city of Newford, an urban-fantasy setting for many further novels and story collections.

Library / Expanded (4 works) context only

Newford, further novels Charles de Lint

WorkYearCanonRating
Cover of TraderTrader1997expandedN/A
Cover of Someplace to Be FlyingSomeplace to Be Flying1998expandedN/A
Cover of Forests of the HeartForests of the Heart2000expandedN/A
Cover of WiddershinsWiddershins2006expandedN/A

Further Newford novels; de Lint also wrote many Newford short-story collections not catalogued individually here.

Quick answers

Why is it ranked #184?

Ranked #184 in the official ranking.

How the ranking works →

Why explore this universe?

Highly rated · 3 books · Ongoing · 13k ratings · Ranks #184 overall

Good choice if you want a quick, low-commitment urban fantasy universe that's still ongoing, with new books still coming.

Reading order

Publication order (3 Core Canon books)

  1. The Dreaming Place (1990)
  2. Memory and Dream (1994)
  3. The Onion Girl (2001)

Awards (verified)

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Suggestions computed from what Newford and each of these worlds have in common on record (subgenre, audience, shape, reading commitment and score), not a documented narrative connection.

Official resources

Research details

Ranking metrics: weighted average 4.14 across 12,881 ratings on 3 Core Canon books. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.

How do we know this?

Admission: Newford admitted; three widely-cited novels are the Core, further novels are Expanded accepted 2026-08-21

Sources: (see source tier definitions)

Last reviewed: 2026-08-27

Rule: Core Canon is three novels most consistently cited as central entry points to the setting (1990–2001); further novels are Expanded Canon. Newford short-story collections are a known future research item.

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