A Wizard of Earthsea Ursula Le Guin

Setting

"Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky."

From the Creation of Éa, with which A Wizard of Earthsea begins.[18][19]

Earthsea itself is an archipelago, or group of islands. In the fictional history of this world, the islands were raised from the ocean by a being called Segoy. The world is inhabited by both humans and dragons, and most or all humans have some innate magical gift, some are more gifted sorcerers or wizards.[20] The world is shown as being based on a delicate balance, which most of its inhabitants are aware of, but which is disrupted by somebody in each of the original trilogy of novels.[21] Earthsea is pre-industrial and has diverse cultures within the widespread archipelago. Most of the characters are of the Hardic peoples, who are dark-skinned, and who populate most of the islands.[22] Four large eastern islands are inhabited by the white-skinned Kargish people, who despise magic and see the Hardic folk as evil sorcerers: the Kargs, in turn, are viewed by the Hardic people as barbarians. The far western regions of the archipelago are the realm of the dragons.[22]

Plot summary

The novel follows a young boy called Duny, nicknamed "Sparrowhawk", born on the island of Gont. Discovering that the boy has great innate power, his aunt, a witch, teaches him the little magic she knows.[15] When his village is attacked by Kargish raiders, Duny summons a fog to conceal the village and its inhabitants, enabling the residents to drive off the Kargs.[16] Hearing of this, the powerful mage Ogion takes him as an apprentice, and later gives him his "true name"—Ged.[15] Ogion tries to teach Ged about the "equilibrium", the concept that magic can upset the natural order of the world if used improperly. In an attempt to impress a girl, however, Ged searches Ogion's spell books and inadvertently summons a strange shadow, which has to be banished by Ogion. Sensing Ged's eagerness to act and impatience with his slow teaching methods, Ogion asks if he would rather go to the renowned school for wizards on the island of Roke. Ged loves Ogion, but decides to go to the school.

At the school, Ged meets Jasper, and is immediately on bad terms with him. He is befriended by an older student named Vetch, but generally remains aloof from anyone else. Ged's skills inspire admiration from teachers and students alike. He finds a small creature—an otak, named Hoag, and keeps it as a pet. During a festival Jasper acts condescendingly towards Ged, provoking the latter's proud nature. Ged challenges him to a duel of magic,[16] and casts a powerful spell intended to raise the spirit of a legendary dead woman. The spell goes awry and instead releases a shadow creature, which attacks him and scars his face. The Archmage Nemmerle drives the shadow away, but at the cost of his life.[15][22]

Ged spends many months healing before resuming his studies. The new Archmage, Gensher, describes the shadow as an ancient evil that wishes to possess Ged, and warns him that the creature has no name. Ged eventually graduates and receives his wizard's staff.[16] He then takes up residence in the Ninety Isles, providing the poor villagers protection from the dragons that have seized and taken up residence on the nearby island of Pendor, but discovers that he is still being sought by the shadow. Knowing that he cannot guard against both threats at the same time, he sails to Pendor and gambles his life on a guess of the adult dragon's true name. When he is proved right, the dragon offers to tell him the name of the shadow, but Ged instead extracts a promise that the dragon and his offspring will never threaten the archipelago.

Chased by the shadow, Ged flees to Osskil, having heard of the stone of the Terrenon. He is attacked by the shadow, and barely escapes into the Court of Terrenon. Serret, the lady of the castle, and the same girl that Ged had tried to impress, shows him the stone, and urges Ged to speak to it, claiming it can give him limitless knowledge and power. Recognizing that the stone harbors one of the Old Powers—ancient, powerful, malevolent beings—Ged refuses. He flees and is pursued by the stone's minions, but transforms into a swift falcon and escapes. He loses his otak.

Ged flies back to Ogion on Gont. Unlike Gensher, Ogion insists that all creatures have a name and advises Ged to confront the shadow.[16] Ogion is proved right; when Ged seeks out the shadow, it flees from him. Ged pursues it in a small sailboat, until it lures him into a fog where the boat is wrecked on a reef. Ged recovers with the help of an elderly couple marooned on a small island since they were children; the woman gives Ged part of a broken bracelet as a gift. Ged patches his boat and resumes his pursuit of the creature into the East Reach. On the island of Iffish, he meets his friend Vetch, who insists on joining him.[22] They journey east far beyond the last known lands before they finally come upon the shadow. Naming it with his own name, Ged merges with it and joyfully tells Vetch he is healed and whole.[15][23]

Illustrations

The first edition of the book, published in 1968, was illustrated by Ruth Robbins. The cover illustration was in color, and the interior of the book contained a map of the archipelago of Earthsea. In addition, each chapter had a black-and-white illustration by Robbins, similar to a woodcut image. The images represented topics from each chapter; for instance, the very first image depicted the island of Gont, while the illustration for the chapter "The Dragon of Pendor" pictured a flying dragon. The image shown here depicts Ged sailing in his boat Lookfar, and was used in the 10th chapter, "The Open Sea", in which Ged and Vetch travel from Iffish eastward past all known lands to confront the shadow creature.

Publication

A Wizard of Earthsea was first published in 1968 by Parnassus Press in Berkeley,[2] a year before The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin's watershed work.[24] It was a personal landmark for Le Guin, as it represented her first attempt at writing for children; she had written only a handful of other novels and short stories prior to its publication.[10] The book was also her first attempt at writing fantasy, rather than science-fiction.[11][16] A Wizard of Earthsea was the first of Le Guin's books to receive widespread critical attention,[25] and has been described as her best known work, as part of the Earthsea series.[26] The book has been released in numerous editions, including an illustrated Folio Society edition released in 2015.[27] It was also translated into a number of other languages.[28] An omnibus edition of all of Le Guin's Earthsea works was released on the 50th anniversary of the publication of A Wizard of Earthsea in 2018.[29]

Le Guin originally intended for A Wizard of Earthsea to be a standalone novel, but decided to write a sequel after considering the loose ends in the first book, and The Tombs of Atuan was released in 1971. The Farthest Shore was written as a third volume after further consideration, and was published in 1972.[6][30][31] The Tombs of Atuan tells of the story of Ged's attempt to make whole the ring of Erreth Akbe, half of which is buried in the tombs of Atuan in the Kargish lands, from where he must steal it. There, he meets the child priestess Tenar, on whom the book focuses.[6][31] In The Farthest Shore, Ged, who has become Archmage, tries to combat a dwindling of magic across Earthsea, accompanied by Arren, a young prince.[6] The first three books are together seen as the "original trilogy";[6][31][32] in each of these, Ged is shown as trying to heal some imbalance in the world.[31] They were followed by Tehanu (1990), Tales from Earthsea (2001), and The Other Wind (2001), which are sometimes referred to as the "second trilogy".[31][33]