Fantasy Web Novels

Fantasy web novels with public chapters on NovelCult.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Everyone’s familiar with Lewis Carroll’s famous children’s classic and the huge influence it’s had on modern culture. The Mad Hatter, the Duchess, the Cheshire Cat, the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar—all of these strange and familiar creatures appear in Alice, and the nonsensical style, memorable poems, and colorful set pieces are just as influential. The book was originally written as gift to Alice Liddel, the daughter of one of Carroll’s friends.

Lewis Carroll · Fantasy · 13 ch

A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843 and the first edition, published on 19th December, was so successful that it sold out in just six days. The publishers had to produce two further editions between Christmas and the new year to meet the demand, and the novella has never been out of print. A Christmas Carol tells the story of a greedy money-lender, Ebenezer Scrooge, who is first visited by the ghost of his former business partner and then by three spirits—the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

Charles Dickens · Fantasy · 6 ch

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the classic American children’s novel about the adventures of Dorothy, a young girl who along with her dog Toto is swept away by a cyclone to the magical Land of Oz. It was written by L. Frank Baum and published in May 1900.

L. Frank Baum · Fantasy · 25 ch

Peter Pan

Peter Pan, a young boy who refuses to grow up, takes Wendy to the lost boys on the fantasy island of the Neverland to be their mother. Wendy’s two brothers, John and Michael, accompany them on their many adventures, including skirmishes with the Native Americans who reside there, and battles with pirates, led by Pan’s nemesis Captain Hook, who is said to be feared even by Captain Flint and Long John Silver. Peter and Wendy, J.

J. M. Barrie · Fantasy · 17 ch

The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book is a short collection of stories published by Kipling in various magazines between 1893 and 1894. Kipling spent both his early years and his late teenage years in India, and that upbringing is front and center in these stories—despite them being written while he was living in Vermont, in the United States. The stories are fable-like, with most of them centering on the lives of anthropomorphised jungle animals and a few focused on human characters in India.

Rudyard Kipling · Fantasy · 7 ch

The Wind in the Willows

The Wind in the Willows, the story of four animals and their adventures in the idyllic English countryside, started out as bedtime stories Grahame would tell his son. He eventually started writing them down, and finally produced this much-loved childrens classic. In continuous print since 1908, The Wind in the Willows has been illustrated countless times and adapted to stage, radio, and screen.

Kenneth Grahame · Fantasy · 12 ch

Through the Looking-Glass

Alice dreams herself into a mirror version of Wonderland, a whimsical land of talking flowers, and chess pieces, and a fighting lion and unicorn, and crosses sections of a life-size chess board. Upon reaching the Eighth Square, she is crowned a queen and the Red and White Queens throw her her very own dinner party to celebrate. Through the Looking-Glass is a sequel to the wildly popular Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, where Alice finds herself in a mirror image of Wonderland, instead based on a chess board rather than a deck of cards, meeting mirror copies of her old friends.

Lewis Carroll · Fantasy · 15 ch

The Adventures of Pinocchio

The Adventures of Pinocchio is a story that has reached many people across the globe since it was first penned by Carlo Collodi in 1883. The adventures were originally published in serial format in an Italian weekly magazine for children. In 1940, Disney released an animated film adaptation of the story that has solidified the fable in popular culture.

Carlo Collodi · Fantasy · 36 ch

Orlando

Originally published in 1928, Orlando, one of Virginia Woolf’s better-known novels, provides a splendid example of Modernist experimentation with genre and storytelling. Orlando is a young Elizabethan nobleman who loves writing poetry as much as he does hunting, wrestling with the household dogs, and indulging in a fine night’s carouse. After being favored by Queen Elizabeth herself, he falls tragically in love.

Virginia Woolf · Fantasy · 11 ch

The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.

Initially published throughout 1819 and 1820, The Sketchbook is a collection of 34 essays and short stories, collected and ordered according to the Author’s Revised Edition published in 1848. The Sketchbook is the first publication to use Irving’s pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon, which he would carry into later works. The stories vary in nature, from the comical “The Mutability of Literature” to the eerie and seemingly supernatural “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” but the personality of their narrator, Geoffrey Crayon, connects the stories and attracts their readers.

Washington Irving · Fantasy · 35 ch

The Princess and the Goblin

The Princess and the Goblin is a children’s fantasy novel in the vein of the best classic fairy tales. The simple narrative follows Princess Irene as she discovers a ghostly relative living in a castle tower only she can access. During a walk outside one day, she encounters the threat of the lair of goblins living near the castle—and meets a new friend, a young miner named Curdie.

George MacDonald · Fantasy · 32 ch

The Well at the World’s End

The King of Upmeads has four sons who are tired of living in the peaceable kingdom, and yearn to adventure abroad. Three are sent out, but the fourth, Ralph, is chosen to stay home. He can’t stand being left behind, and so he runs away, wandering to the many lands beyond Upmeads.

William Morris · Fantasy · 119 ch

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz

Dorothy Gale, accompanied by her cat, Eureka, is traveling to visit her Uncle Henry and her other relatives in California, when she encounters her second cousin, Zeb. While en route in a horse-drawn buggy, an earthquake strikes, creating a vast crevasse into which Dorothy, Zeb, Eureka, and a cab-horse named Jim fall. While underground, they encounter the Wizard, who was last seen flying off in a balloon at the end of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

L. Frank Baum · Fantasy · 21 ch

The Road to Oz

The Road to Oz tells the story of Dorothy Gale as she escorts a shaggy traveler who appears outside her farm. They soon find themselves transported to a fantasy land. Upon realizing this, Dorothy and the Shaggy Man travel down the road with the assumption that it will lead them to Oz, revealing a way for Dorothy to return home.

L. Frank Baum · Fantasy · 25 ch

At the Back of the North Wind

As a poor cabbie and his wife eke out a meager existence in Victorian London, their little boy, Diamond—named after his father’s horse—is befriended by the North Wind. While Diamond learns much about life through his travels with North Wind, his visit to the country at her “back” proves to be transformative. As life in London grows especially hard, that moment provides Diamond with the resources to touch those around him with beauty and truth.

George MacDonald · Fantasy · 38 ch

Five Children and It

Initially published in The Strand Magazine, which explains its episodic nature, Five Children and It was later collected into a book. Like many of E. Nesbit’s works, it has proven popular with children and adults to this day.

E. Nesbit · Fantasy · 11 ch

The Gods of Mars

The Gods of Mars is Burroughs’ sequel to A Princess of Mars. After ten long years, John Carter is again transported to Mars to try and determine the fate of his wife Dejah Thoris, but finds himself in the forbidden Valley Dor, from which no man may return. Published serially in five parts between January and May 1913, this sequel appeared a year after the initial serialization of its predecessor.

Edgar Rice Burroughs · Fantasy · 23 ch

Lilith

Lilith, first published in 1895, tells the story of Mr. Vane, the owner of a library that seems to be haunted by a raven—the ghost of the library’s former owner. Mr. Vane eventually follows this strange figure through a mirror and into another world, the “region of seven dimensions.” There Vane meets a number of characters, including Biblical characters like Adam and his first wife Lilith. Thus begins a battle of good versus evil that reverberates through dimensions.

George MacDonald · Fantasy · 48 ch

Phantastes

Phantastes was published in 1858. It tells the story of Anodos, who, on coming of age, is examining the effects of his deceased father. To his astonishment, in doing so he sees an apparition of a fairy woman, who tells him that he has some fairy blood and conveys him to Fairy Land.

George MacDonald · Fantasy · 28 ch

The Worm Ouroboros

The Worm Ouroboros is considered to be one of the foundational texts of the high fantasy genre, influencing later authors like J. R. R.

E. R. Eddison · Fantasy · 38 ch

New to this genre? Fantasy Web Novels: Worlds and Magic explains what defines it, what readers expect, and where to start.