Cover art released for Sir Terry Pratchett’ final Discworld novel

“The Shepherd’s Crown” is a bittersweet gift: This upcoming Discworld novel from Sir Terry Pratchett arrives with the knowledge that it’s the last one readers will get. The inimitable author died in March.

“The Shepherd’s Crown” will be released by HarperCollins Children’s Books on Sept. 1, two weeks earlier than originally reported. It’s the fifth Discworld novel to feature the young witch Tiffany Aching, who got her first starring role at age 9 in “The Wee Free Men” (2003).

Pratchett published his first Discworld novel, “The Colour of Magic,” in 1983. Dozens more followed over the decades, selling some 85 million copies and delighting readers of all ages around the world.

Cover designer Jim Tearney said, “I wanted to give the cover design of ‘The Shepherd’s Crown’ a fresh spin and reboot the look to build excitement for this last novel, while still staying true to the spirit of Pratchett’s Discworld series. Complementing each story with a bold iconic cover felt like the best way to distill the lush, complex and detailed narratives.”

Washington Post book critic Michael Dirda is a great fan of the Diskworld novels and their author.

“Terry Pratchett was the greatest comic novelist of our time,” he said, “but not just a comic novelist. As a creator of characters, he possessed an almost Chaucerian genius. As a moralist — and he was a moralist — he constantly championed the virtues of courage and kindness and loyalty. At his most satirical, he poked fun at every form of bureaucracy, every variety of fanaticism and prejudice, and every tendency to value abstractions over living, breathing people. His literary motto might be that of Discworld’s Ankh-Morport newspaper. Because of a typo, it reads: ‘The truth will make you fret.’ In Pratchett’s work, it will also make you laugh. A lot.”