The article is about The Doll's House, the graphic novel collection of the comic book The Sandman. There is a separate article about A Doll's House, the play by Henrik Ibsen.


The Doll's House is the second graphic novel collection of the comic book series The Sandman, published by DC Comics. It collects issues #8-16. It is written by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III, Chris Bachalo, Michael Zulli and Steve Parkhouse, and lettered by Todd Klein.

It was first issued in paperback in 1989, and later in hardback in 1995.

The previous volume in the series is Preludes and Nocturnes. The next volume in the series is Dream Country.

Both Preludes and Nocturnes and The Doll's House reprint issue #8 of the series ("The Sound of Her Wings"). This is probably because The Doll's House was the first Sandman collection to be printed, and at the time it was unclear that any others would be issued. When the series became popular enough to be fully collected, issue #8 was also included in Preludes and Nocturnes, to which it is arguably the epilogue.

Synopsis

The arc of The Doll's House is told in somewhat disjointed form, but overall it concerns Morpheus picking up the pieces of his kingdom and existence in the wake of his imprisonment for most of the 20th century, and a machination by his brother-sister Desire.

It opens with a prologue set amongst an ancient African tribe, telling the story of how an ancient queen, Nada, had fallen in love with the dream king, Morpheus, but when he asked her to be his queen in his kingdom of dreams, she declined and he condemned her to hell.

The story then shifts to the present, where young Rose Walker and her mother Miranda meet their grandmother, Unity Kinkaid, a victim of the sleeping sickness while Morpheus was imprisoned. Rose decides to stay in England near Unity, and takes up residence in a boarding house full of peculiar characters. She also dreams of her brother, Jed Walker, who is himself having nightmares.

Jed, it turns out, has become the pawn of several of Morpheus' escaped creatures, first a pair who have been using his head to host a small dream dimension of their own, and then into the clutches of The Corinthian, who attends a convention of serial killers. Between Morpheus and Rose, Jed is ultimately rescued. However, this also results in the freeing of Lyta Hall, the former superheroine The Fury, the wife of the second Silver Age Sandman. Lyta who is pregnant with a child conceived in the small dream dimension, and whom Morpheus claims as his own - angering Lyta.

Rose also finds that she can merge the dreams of those who live in the same block. Morpheus informs Rose that she is in fact a vortex of dream, and that he must kill her to restore order to the Dreaming, or terrible consequences will result. This turns out to be Desire's gambit, as Desire turns out to be Rose's grandfather, having set up this situation to force Morpheus to kill one of his family. Unity, who was supposed to be the vortex had she not fallen asleep, interrupts and offers herself instead, which satisfies the situation. Rose returns to her life, and Morpheus confronts Desire.

A side story in the middle of the book introduces Hob Gadling, an unusual man from the 14th century in that he refuses to die - and Morpheus' sister Death obliges his wish, so long as he wants. Hob makes a deal with Morpheus to meet in the same tavern, every hundred years, and the two become friends. Hob appears in later volumes.