posted on 31 Aug 2022

Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence

Over the past couple of weeks I have found myself rereading some spectacular children’s literature from the 1960s and 70s. I began with some of Alan Garner’s work (Letterpress review) and moved on to the five novels in Susan Cooper’s wonderful The Dark is Rising sequence. The first two volumes in the sequence – Over Sea, Under Stone and The Dark is Rising – are already reviewed on Letterpress. I had extremely fond memories of reading these in the late-70s but had never read the rest of the sequence. It seemed a good time to put this right.

The five The Dark is Rising novels offer a crash-course in what was happening in children’s literature during the 1960s and 70s. Writing for younger readers – and especially fantasy writing – was becoming not just darker and more challenging, but more inventive too in how it used myth, magic and folklore. But equally, the old had not entirely given way to the new: for instance, as the earlier Letterpress reviews note, you can see that Susan Cooper was still seeking to reconcile elements of dark fantasy with the sort of Enid Blyton-style adventure stories that had previously dominated writing for children (this is especially the case in Over Sea, Under Stone and Greenwitch). Personally, I find that the inherent tension this creates adds to the enjoyment.

But many older readers will find a further dimension of warm nostalgia (perhaps even consolation) in Susan Cooper’s novels, because they are pre-internet, pre-smart phone and to a considerable degree almost pre-mass tourism too, so that their settings (Cornwall, Wales, Buckinghamshire) are almost unchanged from the 1950s. Some may consider this detrimental to the books, evidence that children’s writing wasn’t changing fast enough but I think it adds enormously to the atmosphere.

I love the essentially old-fashioned adventure story that lies at the heart of the first volume, Over Sea, Under Stone and its deeply nostalgic Cornish setting, emphasised in my old Puffin edition by Margery Gill’s lovely black-and-white line drawings throughout.  I had forgotten how unrelenting the second volume is, the novel that rightly gives the sequence its title, as the forces of the Dark mount their bitterest attack during the Winter Solstice. This is arguably where the sequence really hits its stride.

The clever way that Cooper uses Greenwitch, the third volume, to bring together the young people from the two key families so far involved in the sequence – the Drews and the Stantons – and return to the Cornish setting is unexpected and brilliantly done. Although Greenwitch does get darker and more claustrophobic as it progresses, its setting during glorious spring weather offers a welcome relief after the numbing wintry darkness of the preceding volume.

The fourth volume, The Grey King, is set in Wales, where Will Stanton is regaining his strength after a period of illness. He is staying on a lowland farm belonging to an aunt and uncle. Illness has wiped his memory of the special wisdom of the Light that it was part of his life’s mission to remember and preserve. So far, I think this volume is emerging as my favourite but I’ll reserve comment until I finally finish the sequence.

Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence, published during a twelve-year period from 1965 to 1977, may seem tame in a world that has become dominated by blockbuster special-effects fantasy drama, but these books hold a very special place in the hearts of those who have discovered them. So much so, that thousands of Cooper’s fans around the world mark the Winter Solstice with a collective rereading of the series – including Helen Macdonald, the acclaimed author of H is for Hawk, as she explains in this interview.

The covers of the series have undergone numerous changes over the years. To my mind the best and the most evocative will always be those designed by Michael Heslop, four of which are shown below. You can see more of his cover designs from the 1970s here.

 

Alun Severn

September 2022