Alan Garner

Author profile

born

in Congleton, Cheshire, The United Kingdom

October 17, 1934

gender

male

genre

Science Fiction & Fantasy, Children's Books

About this author

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Alan Garner OBE (born 17 October 1934) is an English novelist who is best known for his children's fantasy novels and his retellings of traditional British folk tales. His work is firmly rooted in the landscape, history and folklore of his native county of Cheshire, North West England, being set in the region and making use of the native Cheshire dialect.

Born into a working-class family in Congleton, Cheshire, Garner grew up around the nearby town of Alderley Edge, and spent much of his youth in the wooded area known locally as 'The Edge', where he gained an early interest in the folklore of the region. Studying at Manchester Grammar School and then Oxford University, in 1957 he moved to the nearby village of Blackden, where he bought and r...more Alan Garner OBE (born 17 October 1934) is an English novelist who is best known for his children's fantasy novels and his retellings of traditional British folk tales. His work is firmly rooted in the landscape, history and folklore of his native county of Cheshire, North West England, being set in the region and making use of the native Cheshire dialect.

Born into a working-class family in Congleton, Cheshire, Garner grew up around the nearby town of Alderley Edge, and spent much of his youth in the wooded area known locally as 'The Edge', where he gained an early interest in the folklore of the region. Studying at Manchester Grammar School and then Oxford University, in 1957 he moved to the nearby village of Blackden, where he bought and renovated an Early Modern building known as Toad Hall. His first novel, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, was published in 1960. A children's fantasy novel set on the Edge, it incorporated elements of local folklore in its plot and characters. Garner completed a sequel, The Moon of Gomrath (1963), but left the third book of the trilogy he had envisioned. Instead he produced a string of further fantasy novels, Elidor (1965), The Owl Service (1967) and Red Shift (1973).

Turning away from fantasy as a genre, Garner produced The Stone Book Quartet (1979), a series of four short novellas detailing a day in the life of four generations of his family. He also published a series of British folk tales which he had rewritten in a series of books entitled Alan Garner's Fairy Tales of Gold (1979), Alan Garner's Book of British Fairy Tales (1984) and A Bag of Moonshine (1986). In his subsequent novels, Strandloper (1996) and Thursbitch (2003), he continued writing tales revolving around Cheshire, although without the fantasy elements which had characterised his earlier work. In 2012, he finally published a third book in the Weirdstone trilogy.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Garner

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Alan Garner's Books

Average rating: 3.84 · 6,561 ratings · 615 reviews · 35 distinct works · Similar authors

	The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (Tales of Alderley, #1) 4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 avg rating — 2,008 ratings — published 1960 — 27 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Owl Service 3.71 of 5 stars 3.71 avg rating — 1,676 ratings — published 1967 — 31 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Elidor 3.79 of 5 stars 3.79 avg rating — 949 ratings — published 1965 — 22 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Moon of Gomrath (Tales of Alderley, #2) 3.89 of 5 stars 3.89 avg rating — 652 ratings — published 1963 — 21 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Red Shift 3.61 of 5 stars 3.61 avg rating — 416 ratings — published 1973 — 10 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Thursbitch 3.47 of 5 stars 3.47 avg rating — 192 ratings — published 2003 — 2 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Boneland (Tales of Alderley, #3) 3.94 of 5 stars 3.94 avg rating — 149 ratings — published 2012 — 3 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Stone Book Quartet 3.97 of 5 stars 3.97 avg rating — 123 ratings — published 1976 — 6 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Strandloper 4.04 of 5 stars 4.04 avg rating — 78 ratings — published 1996 — 2 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Collected Folk Tales 4.25 of 5 stars 4.25 avg rating — 59 ratings — published 2011 — 3 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Alan Garner…

Series by Alan Garner

Tales of Alderley (3 books)
by Alan Garner
3.97008547008547 of 5 stars 3.97 avg rating — 2,808 ratings

Weirdstone Trilogy (3 books)
by Alan Garner
3.97008547008547 of 5 stars 3.97 avg rating — 2,808 ratings

The Stone Book Quartet (5 books)
by Alan Garner
4.026490066225166 of 5 stars 4.03 avg rating — 151 ratings

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Quotes by Alan Garner

“She wants to be flowers, but you make her owls. You must not complain, then, if she goes hunting.”
― Alan Garner, The Owl Service

14 people liked it

“... I had never given much credence to the phenomenon of "writer's block". I was more inclined to think of it as "writer's impatience", and to follow Arthur Koestler's dictum: "Soak; and wait.”
― Alan Garner, The Voice That Thunders

6 people liked it

“The job of a storyteller is to speak the truth. But what we feel most deeply can’t be spoken in words alone. At this level, only images connect. And here, story becomes symbol; symbol is myth. And myth is truth.”
― Alan Garner

6 people liked it

See all Alan Garner's quotes »

Polls

October Category One Books: Regular Fiction/Non-Fiction YA

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

38 votes, 30.9%

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

36 votes, 29.3%

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

15 votes, 12.2%

Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin

11 votes, 8.9%

Elidor by Alan Garner

8 votes, 6.5%

North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley

8 votes, 6.5%

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

7 votes, 5.7%

123 total votes

10 comments

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Topics Mentioning This Author

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UK Book Club: * The Times list of 50 greatest writers since 1945	31	893	May 03, 2012 06:29am
Children's Books: Alan Garner to Finish His "Weirdstone of Brisingamen" Trilogy!!!	4	14	Jul 18, 2012 09:38am
The Sword and Laser: A life time achievement award for GRRM	1	30	Jul 23, 2012 09:22am
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2013 Reading Chal...: SilverRaindrops' Challenge - Updated from 120 to 150	32	64	Oct 15, 2012 06:55am

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