Over Sea, Under Stone is the first of five books in The Dark Is Rising series.

Susan Cooper initially wrote it as a single novel, although she left the story open-ended because she had grown fond of the characters. The last sentence of the novel predicts that questions raised in the novel will be answered.

Jane, Barney and Simon are important in the third and fifth novels in the series, Greenwitch and Silver on the Tree; Will Stanton figures most prominently in all of the last four novels. Great-Uncle Merry represents the Light in each of the novels.

The Dark Is Rising, the second novel in the series, records Will Stanton's initiation into the eternal conflict between the Light and the Dark. He leams on his eleventh birthday that, like Merriman Lyon, he has the responsibilities of one of the Old Ones, and he is called...