The Stone Book Quartet, or Stone Book series, is a set of four short novels by

Alan Garner Alan Garner (born 17 October 1934) is an English novelist best known for his children's fantasy novels and his retellings of traditional British folk tales. Much of his work is rooted in the landscape, history and folklore of his native count ...

and published by

William Collins, Sons William Collins, Sons (often referred to as Collins) was a Scottish printing and publishing company founded by a Presbyterian schoolmaster, William Collins, in Glasgow in 1819, in partnership with Charles Chalmers, the younger brother of Thomas ...

, from 1976 to 1978. Set in eastern

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

, they feature one day each in the life of four generations of Garner's family and they span more than a century. In a 1989 interview he called them "four very short novels which hang together as one work, called ''The Stone Book Quartet'', where again I write about Alderley Edge, luminously but not magically." The allusion is to ''

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen ''The Weirdstone of Brisingamen: A Tale of Alderley'' is a children's fantasy novel by English author Alan Garner. Garner began work on the novel, his literary debut, in 1957, after he moved into the late medieval house, Toad Hall, in Blackden ...

'' and its sequels (1960, 1963, 2012), which concern the locale of

Alderley Edge Alderley Edge is a village and civil parish in Cheshire, England. In 2011, it had a population of 4,780. Alderley Edge is northwest of Macclesfield and south of Manchester, at the base of a steep and thickly wooded sandstone escarpment, Alder ...

, although not the village itself. ISFDB calls them the Alderley series. In the same interview he called the work "exhausting" but "the most rewarding of everything" he'd done to date. The four books were first published by Collins in

hardcover A hardcover, hard cover, or hardback (also known as hardbound, and sometimes as case-bound) book is one bound with rigid protective covers (typically of binder's board or heavy paperboard covered with buckram or other cloth, heavy paper, or occa ...

editions of 270 pages in sum. # ''The Stone Book'' (1976, ) # ''Tom Fobble's Day'' (1977, 0-00-184832-1) — the last of four in narrative sequence # ''Granny Reardun'' (1977, 0-00-184288-9) # ''The Aimer Gate'' (1978, 0-00-184067-3) One year after ''The Aimer Gate'', Collins published a 172-page omnibus entitled ''The Stone Book Quartet'' (1979, 9780006551515) and subsequent editions have retained the title. The

narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller (ge ...

sequence is ''The Stone Book'', ''Granny Reardun'', ''The Aimer Gate'', and ''Tom Fobble's Day''. The series is named for ''The Stone Book'' (1976), both the first published and the earliest in narrative sequence. In a time when the main trade is

stonemason Stonemasonry or stonecraft is the creation of buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone as the primary material. It is one of the oldest activities and professions in human history. Many of the long-lasting, ancient shelters, temples, mo ...

, Mary requests a book from her father and he makes one out of stone as he does not believe books and formal education are valuable. The story won the 1996

Phoenix Award The Phoenix Award annually recognizes one English-language children's book published twenty years earlier that did not then win a major literary award. It is named for the mythical bird phoenix that is reborn from its own ashes, signifying the ...

from the

Children's Literature Association The Children's Literature Association (ChLA) is a non-profit association, based in the United States, of scholars, critics, professors, students, librarians, teachers, and institutions dedicated to studying children's literature.Margaret W. Denman- ...

as the best English-language children's book that did not gain a major award when it was originally published twenty years earlier. It is named for the mythical bird phoenix, which is reborn from its ashes, to suggest the book's rise from obscurity. While seemingly in modern English, the language of the book is poetic and draws on the patterns and rhythms of local

dialect. Garner's great grandfather was a

, and ''The Stone Book'' describes his initiating his daughter into the secrets of his craft high on the steeple of a

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

he is helping to build. When she asks for a book, he shows her an older writing – his own stonemason's emblem carved in rock deep within

and dating back countless centuries. Among Garner's works, ''The Stone Book'' is the tenth most widely held (catalogued) in

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...

participating libraries.

References

External links

* * —immediately, the first edition (omnibus) : Summary: "These four interconnected fables are of a way of living in rural England that has now disappeared. Craftsmen pass on, or withhold, secrets of their near-magical relationship with the natural world, which gives them the material from which they create useful and beautiful things." {{DEFAULTSORT:Stone Book Quartet, The British children's novels Novels set in Cheshire Short stories by Alan Garner Series of children's books 1976 British novels William Collins, Sons books 1977 British novels 1978 British novels 1979 children's books Children's short story collections