As Bartimaeus explains in one of the many entertaining and informative footnotes that appear in the chapters he narrates, 'Magicians hold their knowledge close to their shriveled little hearts, coveting its power the way a miser covets gold, and they will only pass it on with caution.' In this way, young magicians are taught in secrecy and stealth in the homes of their masters, rarely leaving the premises and going on to government jobs when they have completed their studies. Instead, select children are taken from their parents (who are in turn compensated financially) and placed in the home of a master. The world that Stroud builds for his story is immediate, intense and stunningly real. As Diana Wynne Jones, the master of middle-grade magicians herself, says of The Amulet of Samarkand in her 2003 review for the Guardian, the story is set in an 'alternate England - at least, I hope it's not ours - where the ruling classes are cold-hearted, self-centered magicians who derive their power from their ability to summon demons (djinn, afrits, imps) and coerce them into following their orders.' Years of study and practice go into learning the spells and incantations that call forth these demons from the Other Place and bind them to a master who will use them for magical purposes, and there is no school for wizards. While Stroud's books are also set in contemporary England and feature a badly treated young boy who practices magic, the similarities end there. The Amulet of Samarkand was published the same year as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth book in Rowling's series and the standard bearer by which all middle-grade fantasy is measured, it seems. The Bartimaeus Series, including a prequel, The Ring of Solomon, published in 2010, is complex, profound, though provoking and, above all else, filled with compelling characters and suspenseful action.

Between 20 Jonathan Stroud wrote the first three books featuring Bartimaeus, the sarcastic, snarky, infinitely resourceful 5,000 year old djinni, and Nathaniel, an apprentice magician who is twelve years old at the start of the story.

The bartimaeus trilogy book 1