Ursula Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

Luke Shelton (University of Glasgow)

Ed. by Dimitra Fimi, University of Glasgow
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1968

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel
Children's Literature
- Young Adult

Resources

In 1967, Ursula K. Le Guin was asked to write a book for readers 11-17 years old by Herman Schein of Parnassus Press. The book that she would write became known as A Wizard of Earthsea. Published in 1968, this became the first novel in Le Guin’s Earthsea cycle. The Earthsea cycle would ultimately span six books and nearly thirty-five years of her writing career. 1968 seems to have been a banner year for the first books of fantasy series, as A Wizard of Earthsea was one of several first volumes published, Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn (1968) and Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight (1968) being two other notable examples. This was not Le Guin’s first book-length undertaking. In …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2291 words

Citation: Shelton, Luke. "A Wizard of Earthsea". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 October 2019 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=11786, accessed 19 April 2024.]

Save this article