A Wizard of Earthsea

The American writer Ursula K. Le Guin published her fantasy novel A Wizard of Earthsea in 1968 through Parnassus, a small press. It is the first book set in the archipelago of Earthsea, and it is widely treated as a classic of both fantasy and children's literature. The book follows Ged from childhood in a village on Gont, in the north of the archipelago, to his training as a mage.

Ged is a goatherd on an island where nobody has much use for him until he stops a raider's spell, and after that the village sends him to a teacher. He is gifted at magic, and his need to be seen using that gift brings him into a quarrel with another student at the school for wizards on Roke. A duel between them goes wrong, and his spell lets loose a shadow that hunts him from then on.

What follows is Ged's long attempt to escape it, across an archipelago where magic runs on true names and knowing what a thing is called gives you power over it. The book is often described as a coming-of-age story, and it follows Ged as he learns how to hold power and how to come to terms with death. It is a short novel told in a formal, measured register rather than a long epic.

Le Guin returned to Earthsea in later novels and stories, including The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore, which widen the world and change its perspective. This first volume establishes Ged, the school on Roke and the system of true names that the rest of the series uses, and it can be read on its own.