Howl’s Moving Castle is set in a land called Ingary, where magic, witches, and wizards are part of everyday life. Sophie Hatter is an 18-year-old young woman living in the town of Market Chipping with her father, stepmother Fanny, biological sister Lettie, and half-sister Martha. The family keeps a hat shop. As Sophie is the eldest sister, she is expected to be the “one who will fail first, and worst” (1) to secure herself a fortune.

Outside Market Chipping is a stretch of hills and wilderness called the Waste. At the story’s beginning, the Witch of the Waste threatens the King’s daughter and is rumored to have killed the King’s personal magician Wizard Suliman when the Wizard came to the Wastes to admonish the Witch. A few months later, the Witch is thought to have moved out of the Wastes. A black, moving castle appears in the Wastes, belonging to the Wizard Howl. People in Market Chipping believe Howl to be particularly malicious and often searching for young women to eat their hearts.

Following the death of Mr. Hatter, Fanny reorganizes the shop’s finances to pay off debts. She takes Sophie and her sisters out of school and apprentices them: Sophie will stay in the hat shop, Lettie will go to Cesari’s bakery, and Martha will be apprenticed to the witch Mrs.