What to read after “The Lost Prince” by Frances Hodgson Burnett: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.
Frodo inherits a golden ring that is far more than it seems, and learns it is the master ring of the enemy Sauron. With a company of dwarves, elves, men and a hobbit gardener, he sets out to carry it to the only place where it can be destroyed.
Shasta has grown up poor in Calormen and dreams of escape. When he meets a talking horse who longs for Narnia, the two flee north together, joined by a runaway noble girl and her horse. Their road lies across a burning desert, with pursuers close behind and a secret about Shasta's past waiting at the end.
Theseus grows up in Troizen believing the sea god is his father, then learns his true parentage and travels to Athens to claim his place. On the way he becomes the year-king of Eleusis, bound by an old sacrifice, and later goes to Crete, where he enters the labyrinth and faces the Minotaur.
A boy fleeing his abusive father and a man escaping slavery travel together down the Mississippi on a raft. Their friendship grows as they meet swindlers and feuds along the way, and Huck must decide what he believes. A comic, humane adventure about freedom and conscience.
France, 1660s. Aramis discovers that a prisoner in the Bastille, forced to wear an iron mask, is Philippe, the twin brother of Louis XIV. He plots to replace the king with Philippe, drawing d'Artagnan, Porthos and Athos into a dangerous scheme.
Wart is an orphan boy training to serve as a knight's squire in medieval England. When the wizard Merlyn arrives to tutor him, Wart is turned into animals, meets Robin Hood and learns about power and kingship. The sword in the stone waits for the one who can draw it.
Raised in hiding, nineteen-year-old Kelsea Raleigh is summoned to claim the throne of the Tearling. With only her loyal Queen's Guard, she must cross a dangerous land, win over a distrustful people and face the Red Queen, who wants her kingdom destroyed.
Fourteen-year-old Mia Thermopolis is struggling with algebra, her mother's new boyfriend and a hopeless crush when her father arrives with news: he is the prince of Genovia, and she is his only heir. Mia must balance ordinary school life with princess lessons, a bodyguard and a secret that is about to become very public.
Young Jim Hawkins finds a treasure map in a dead sailor's chest and sails for a distant island where a pirate's gold is buried. Among the crew is the one-legged cook Long John Silver, whose charm hides a plan to seize the hoard.
In the kingdom of Carthya, a nobleman gathers orphan boys and tells them that one must learn to pass as the lost prince Jaron, or die. Sage is quick, defiant and unwilling to play the part, but the game he is forced into has rules no one has told him, and a prize worse than a crown.
Japanese American teenager Izumi Tanaka has never felt she belongs. Then she learns that her father, whom she has never met, is the Crown Prince of Japan. Izumi travels to Tokyo to meet her royal family, where a strict bodyguard and endless protocol complicate her new life.
In 1870 Texas, an ageing widower who reads newspapers aloud to frontier audiences agrees to carry a ten-year-old girl south to her relatives. She was taken by Kiowa years earlier and has forgotten English, and the long journey is dangerous for them both.
Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd, dreams of treasure buried near the Egyptian pyramids and sets out across the desert to find it. Along the way strangers, omens and hardship teach him to read the world and to trust his own heart.
Blue has grown up in a house of psychics and is warned she will cause her true love's death. Drawn into the search for a lost Welsh king with a group of boys from a prestigious school, she finds her life tangled with theirs and with their dangerous families.
Marcus Aquila, a young Roman officer, arrives in Britain after his father's legion vanished in the north. When the legion's eagle standard is rumoured to survive, Marcus and his British companion Esca travel beyond Hadrian's Wall to recover it and clear his family's name.
Bilbo Baggins likes his quiet, well-stocked hole. Then the wizard Gandalf and thirteen dwarves arrive and sweep him off on a journey to reclaim a treasure from the dragon Smaug, and he finds a courage and a ring he never expected.
Harry Crewe, newly orphaned, travels to a remote outpost on the Darian border to live with her brother. Corlath, king of the Free Hillfolk, carries her away from the fort, and she finds an old magic waking in her blood. Caught between two peoples, she must decide where she belongs.
Merlin, the illegitimate son of a Welsh princess, grows up despised and unsure of his parentage. Drawn toward a hidden power, he travels through a Britain of warring kings and finds his place as the prophet and adviser of a young Arthur.
Robin Hood takes to Sherwood Forest as an outlaw after a clash with the law, and gathers a band of loyal companions around him. They rob the rich and the corrupt, help the poor, and match wits with the Sheriff of Nottingham. The tales follow their feasts, disguises, archery contests and fights against unjust rulers.
A wandering sailor joins the whaling ship Pequod, whose captain is obsessed with hunting the white whale that took his leg. As the voyage stretches across the oceans, the crew is dragged toward a reckoning. A vast, digressive novel of obsession, the sea and human nature.
Sabriel has grown up safely across the Wall, far from the Old Kingdom and its dead. When her father, the Abhorsen, vanishes, she crosses into a land where the dead walk and takes up his bells and his duty. With a free magic creature and a trapped soldier, she sets out to find him.
Two former Texas Rangers drive a herd of cattle north to Montana, leading a ragged crew across rivers, drought and hostile country. The long journey tests the old friendship of the two men and the loyalties of everyone who follows them.
Ponyboy Curtis is a greaser in a city divided between poor kids and the richer Socs. After a fight turns deadly, he and his friend go into hiding, and he begins to see the people around him beyond their labels.
Paul Baumer and his classmates enlist in the German army straight from school, urged on by a patriotic teacher. Trench life strips away everything they were taught, and the friends cling to each other as the war grinds them down.
Start with “The Fellowship of the Ring”, “The Horse and His Boy”, “The King Must Die”: they are the closest to “The Lost Prince” in tropes and mood. Under each book in the list you will see what exactly it has in common.
How are similar books chosen?
We compare tropes (for “The Lost Prince” these are Hidden Heir, Coming of Age, Quest), genre, plot, era and tone. It is not “readers also bought”; it is similarity in the content itself.
Are there recent books in this list?
Yes. Among the newer ones are “The Queen of the Tearling”, “The Princess Diaries”, “The False Prince”. Switch the “Modern” filter to keep only books from 2000 onward.
