Stardust

England is ruled by Queen Victoria and on a high granite promontory in the middle of the woods, a full night's drive from London, has stood the village of Wall for six hundred years. The village takes its name from the imposing stone wall that separates it from the adjacent meadow and what lies beyond, its peaceful life. There are old, square houses built of grey stone, with slate roofs and high chimneys. The inhabitants are speechless and sullen. Guards stand day and night at the only gap in the wall to prevent curious onlookers from going out or getting in. Only once every nine years do they leave their watch, when a strange and unusual market is held in the meadow outside the wall. At one such event, Dunstan Thorn meets a mysterious enchanted beauty. The encounter will not go without consequences, Tristran is born. The mother leaves the child at the gap with a note saying it is Dunstan's child. A boy grows up in his father's family and when he is seventeen, he falls unhappily in love. Eager to impress the young girl, he promises to bring a fallen star to her feet. The reward is to win the girl's heart. But Tristram's journey is not without its dangers, he is even threatened by witches and other unpleasantness, but at the end of the journey the boy gets much more than he initially thought...

Stardust won the 1999 Mythopoeic Society's award for adult literature and a year later the Alex Award from the American Library Association for one of the ten best young adult books.

The book was the basis for Matthew Vaughn's 2007 film of the same name starring Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ian McKellen and Sienna Miller.