Publication Order of The Chronicles of Prydain Books
The Book of Three
1964
The Black Cauldron
1965
The Castle of Llyr
1966
Taran Wanderer
1967
The High King
1968
Publication Order of Westmark Trilogy Books
Westmark
1981
The Kestrel
1982
The Beggar Queen
1984
Publication Order of Vesper Holly Books
The Illyrian Adventure
1986
The El Dorado Adventure
1987
The Drackenberg Adventure
1988
The Jedera Adventure
1989
The Philadelphia Adventure
1990
The Xanadu Adventure
2005
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
And Let the Credit Go
1955
Janine Is French
1959
My Love Affair with Music
1960
Time Cat
1963
The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian
1970
The Cat Who Wished to Be a Man
1973
The Wizard in the Tree
1975
The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha
1978
The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen
1991
The Arkadians
1995
The Iron Ring
1997
Gypsy Rizka
1999
The Gawgon and the Boy / The Fantastical Adventures of the Invisible Boy
2001
The Rope Trick
2002
The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio
2007
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
The Foundling and Other Tales of Prydain
1973
The Town Cats and Other Tales
1977
Publication Order of Children’s Books
Coll and His White Pig
1965
The Truthful Harp
1967
The King’s Fountain
1971
The Four Donkeys
1972
The Fortune-Tellers
1992
The House Gobbaleen
1995
How the Cat Swallowed Thunder
2000
Dream-of-Jade: The Emperor’s Cat
2005
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
My Five Tigers
1956
Border Hawk: August Bondi
1958
The Flagship Hope: Aaron Lopez
1960
Park Avenue Vet (With: Louis J. Camuti)
1962
Fifty Years in the Doghouse / Send for Ryan!
1964
About Lloyd Alexander
Lloyd Alexander (1924 to 2007) was an American author of more than 40 books, most of them fantasy novels for children and young adults. He is best known for “The Chronicles of Prydain”, a five-book series drawn from Welsh mythology whose final volume, “The High King”, won the 1969 Newbery Medal.
Alexander was born in Philadelphia and grew up in nearby Drexel Hill. He left college after a single term and enlisted in the US Army during the Second World War, training in intelligence and reaching the rank of staff sergeant. He was stationed briefly in Wales and England before serving in France, and after the war he studied French literature at the University of Paris. In Paris he met Janine Denni, whom he married in 1946, and the couple moved to Philadelphia.
For about fifteen years he wrote for adults and translated French writers, among them Jean-Paul Sartre and Paul Eluard. His first published book, “And Let the Credit Go” (1955), drew on his teenage job as a bank messenger. His first fantasy for children was “Time Cat” (1963), about a cat that can visit its other lives in different periods of history.
The Prydain books began with “The Book of Three” in 1964. They follow Taran, an Assistant Pig-Keeper who dreams of being a hero and grows to adulthood over five novels, until he must decide whether to become High King. “The Black Cauldron” (1965) was a Newbery Honor book, and Disney based its 1985 animated film “The Black Cauldron” on the first two volumes. Alexander added two Prydain picture books and a story collection, “The Foundling and Other Tales of Prydain”.
He won National Book Awards for “The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian” (1970) and for “Westmark” (1981), which opens a trilogy about a printer’s apprentice caught up in rebellion and civil war in an invented European kingdom. The Vesper Holly adventures, beginning with “The Illyrian Adventure” (1986), follow a wealthy Philadelphia orphan through a string of fictional countries in the 1870s.
Alexander received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2003. He died in Drexel Hill in May 2007, a few weeks after his wife, and his last novel, “The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio”, was published that August.
