73 pages • 2 hours read
Diana Wynne JonesHowl’s Moving Castle
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1986A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Background
Authorial Context: Diana Wynne Jones
Diana Wynne Jones, best known for her children’s and young adult fantasy literature, was born in August 1934 in London, England. She is credited as an inspiration for other fantasy writers, such as Terry Pratchett and J.K. Rowling. During her career, Jones was twice a finalist for the Hugo Award, won the British Fantasy Award in 1999, and the World Fantasy Award in 2007.
Jones and her two sisters, Isobel and Ursula, spent a good portion of their childhood moving between Wales and the Lake District in England during the world wars. Jones studied English at St. Anne’s College in Oxford and attended lectures given by C.S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, which introduced her to fantasy as a literary form. She married a scholar of medieval literature, John Burrow, in 1956 and had three sons, Richard, Michael, and Colin.
Jones began writing in the mid-1960s to escape an overwhelming household of three young children and an ill husband. Her first novel, Changeover, was written for adults and explores the emotional and political impacts of decolonization then happening in the British Empire and was published by Macmillan in 1970. Jones continued writing in a variety of literary forms and genres. While visiting a school, Jones was approached by a young boy who requested she write a fantasy novel about a moving castle, so Jones wrote Howl’s Moving Castle in response to the boy’s wish and published this novel in 1986. The book saw a resurgence of popularity when Hayao Miyazaki, famed artist, director, and co-founder of Studio Ghibli, adapted the book to an animated movie in 2004, and the film was nominated for an Oscar. This then led to Jones winning the 2006 Phoenix Award, an award that honors books that resurface into popularity decades after their publication, for Howl’s Moving Castle.
Jones also wrote nonfiction, such as The Tough Guide to Fantasyland (1996), which is Jones’s humorous nonfiction account of cliches in fantasy novels and was nominated for several awards, including the Locus and Hugo Awards.
Over the course of her career, she was nominated for over 15 awards, including the Mythopoeic Society Award, Locus award, World Fantasy Award, the Hugo Award, and the British Fantasy Award, winning four times: the 1996 Mythopoeic Award for The Crown of Dalemark, the 1999 British Fantasy Award, the 1999 Mythopoeic Award for Dark Lord of Derkholm, and the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Convention.
Jones was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2009, and she died on March 26, 2011, from the disease.
Literary Context: Howl’s Moving Castle Series
Howl’s Moving Castle is the first in a series of three fantasy books set in Ingary and follow the adventures of Howl, Sophie, and their friends. The second book in the series, Castle in the Air, introduces the new character of Abdullah, who lives in the land of Rashpuht where Howl and Sophie have made their home following the events of Howl’s Moving Castle. There is some debate over whether this should be considered a true sequel to Howl’s Moving Castle, as it doesn’t deal with the first book’s primary characters until later in the novel, and even then, it focuses on Abdullah as the main character. The final book in the series, House of Many Doors, introduces young Charmain Baker, who is in need of magical assistance. Sophie, now grown into a powerful witch, is consulted and brings Howl and Calcifer to help. Howl’s Moving Castle remains the most successful novel of the three, largely in part to its successful film adaptation produced by Studio Ghibli and adapted by Hayao Miyazaki.
