Cassandra Clare

Cassandra Clare (born 1973) is the pen name of Judith Rumelt, an American young adult fantasy author who created the Shadowhunter world, beginning with City of Bones in 2007.

She was born on 27 July 1973 in Tehran, Iran, to American parents. Before her novels she was known online for Harry Potter fan fiction, The Draco Trilogy, written under the name Cassandra Claire, and for The Very Secret Diaries, based on The Lord of the Rings.

City of Bones opened The Mortal Instruments, which ran to six books: City of Ashes (2008), City of Glass (2009), City of Fallen Angels (2011), City of Lost Souls (2012) and City of Heavenly Fire (2014). The series spent 102 consecutive weeks on the New York Times list by September 2013. She followed it with the Victorian prequel trilogy The Infernal Devices (Clockwork Angel, 2010, to Clockwork Princess, 2013), The Dark Artifices (2016 to 2018) and The Last Hours (2020 to 2023), wrote the Magisterium series with Holly Black, and began the adult Chronicles of Castellane with Sword Catcher (2023). City of Bones was filmed in 2013, and the Shadowhunters television series ran from 2016 for three seasons.

For collectors. City of Bones was first published in the United States by Margaret K. McElderry Books on 27 March 2007 (485-page hardback, jacket by Cliff Nielsen), with the UK edition following on 2 July 2007. Walker Books is the series' publisher in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.