Author | Robert Holdstock |
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Cover artist | Eddi Gornall |
Language | English |
Series | Mythago Wood series |
Genre | Fantasy |
Publisher | Victor Gollancz Ltd |
Publication date | 1984 |
Publication place | United Kingdom |
Media type | Print (hardback) |
Pages | 252 |
ISBN | 0-575-03496-3 |
Followed by | Lavondyss (1988) |
Mythago Wood is a fantasy novel by British writer Robert Holdstock, published in the United Kingdom in 1984. Mythago Wood is set in Herefordshire, England, in and around a stand of ancient woodland, known as Ryhope Wood. The story involves the internally estranged members of the Huxley family, particularly Stephen Huxley, and his experiences with the enigmatic forest and its magical inhabitants. The conception began as a short story written for the 1979 Milford Writer's Workshop; a novella of the same name appeared in the September 1981 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
It won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1985. It belongs to a type of fantasy literature known as mythic fiction. It has received critical acclaim for the quality of its prose, its forest setting, and its exploration of philosophical, spiritual and psychological themes. It served as the first in a series of novels known as the Mythago Wood or Ryhope Wood cycle.