Castle in the Air was published by Methuen in 1990. The novel is a sequel to Howl’s Moving Castle but follows a different protagonist: Abdullah, a young carpet merchant in the city of Zanzib, who daydreams constantly of being a kidnapped prince. When a stranger sells him a magic carpet that flies, Abdullah’s daydreams begin to come true — but in the worst possible way. He meets a beautiful princess (Flower-in-the-Night, raised in total seclusion), falls in love, and immediately loses her to a djinn who carries her away.
The novel draws on the Arabian Nights rather than European fairy tales, and Jones deploys the conventions of that tradition — djinn, flying carpets, enchanted animals, disguised royalty, elaborate courtesy — with the same subversive intelligence she brought to European fairy-tale material in Howl’s Moving Castle. Abdullah’s elaborate fantasies about his own noble origins are comic precisely because they keep coming true in unexpected and unwelcome ways.
The connection to the first novel emerges gradually: Howl and Sophie are present throughout, transformed by magic into unrecognizable forms. The villain’s scheme connects the two books’ plots, and the resolution requires the characters from both narratives to work together. Jones manages this without making the sequel dependent on the first book — Castle in the Air works as a standalone narrative for readers who haven’t read Howl’s Moving Castle.
The novel’s structure is more episodic than its predecessor — a picaresque journey rather than a domestic comedy — but Jones’s characteristic qualities remain: intricate plotting, genuine surprise, and characters who are funnier and more complex than genre conventions require.
Collecting Castle in the Air
First edition (Methuen, London, 1990): Hardcover, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $60–$150
- Very good/very good: $25–$60