Series
The Borrowers
Mary Norton & Sherwood Smith · 6 novels · 1 novelette · 1 short story · 1952–1997
The Borrowers imagines a family of tiny people living secretly beneath the floorboards of an English house, surviving by borrowing pins, stamps, and other small items from the human beans upstairs without ever being seen. Mary Norton's original 1952 novel and its sequels follow the family through discovery, flight, and resettlement across the following decades. Later editions and omnibus volumes gather the novels together, sometimes crediting other writers for introductions or companion material rather than new story content.
Summary by Loreful, from public sources
Reading order
The order the books came out.
Best read in the order they were published.
- Omnibus editions(3 editions)
Map
The Borrowers at the centre, its books fanned around what holds them. Pick anything for its details, and zoom out for similar series in orbit — the reading order above lists the same books as text.
Stats
By decade
- 1950s3
- 1960s3
- 1970s0
- 1980s1
- 1990s1
Shape
6 novels · 1 novelette · 1 short story
2 authors
reads like:fantasysurvivalbritish islesmid 20th centuryadventurouschildren
Mood
Bright and intense: 86% of this series' placed works, the catalog's 44%.
this series · the catalog · one dot = one book7 of 8 works carry a tone
Edges of the map
- The Borrowers Afielddarkest · most intense
- The Borrowersbrightest · calmest