#116 in Classics
The Last Unicorn
- 248
- Pages
- about 4.5 h
- Reading time
- NPR Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books
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Our view
“The Last Unicorn” is a beautifully written fairy tale that looks conventional and then quietly refuses to be simple. A unicorn convinced that no others remain sets out to find her vanished kin, and beneath the quest runs a sincere concern with identity, memory and loss. Some readers are left wondering whether the ending is truly a happy one. Short and thoughtful, it carries more melancholy than its form suggests.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Last Unicorn is a fantasy novel by American author Peter S. Beagle and published in 1968, by Viking Press in the U.S. and The Bodley Head in the U.K. It follows the tale of a unicorn, who believes she is the last of her kind in the world and undertakes a quest to discover what has happened to the other unicorns. It has sold more than six million copies worldwide since its original publication, and has been translated into at least 25 languages.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.9 across 378 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 72% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Classics average of 7.7. That is how 7.9 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.6 | 28 | 7% |
| Hardcover | 7.9 | 350 | 93% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Last Unicorn?
It has 248 pages — shorter than 97% of the ranked books in Classics.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Classics — with scores between 7.8 and 8.0, closest to this book.
