The New York Times Bestseller and Basis for the Tony-Winning Hit Musical Newly Reissued ''An outstanding work of imagination.'' -USA Today When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum''s classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious Witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? Gregory Maguire has created a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability, and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to become the infamous Wicked Witch of the West-a smart, prickly, and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

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Gregory Maguire is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Wicked Years, a series that includes Wicked-the beloved classic that is the basis for the blockbuster Tony Award-winning Broadway musical of the same name and the major motion pictures-Son of a Witch, A Lion Among Men, and Out of Oz. **His series Another Day continues the story of Oz with The Brides of Maracoor, The Oracle of Maracoor, and The Witch of Maracoor, **and his other novels include A Wild Winter Swan, Hiddensee, After Alice, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Lost, and Mirror Mirror. Some of his novels for children include Cress Watercress, Leaping Beauty, **and Egg & Spoon, **winner of a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor. He lives in New England and France.

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The New York Times bestseller and basis for the smash hit musical and two major motion pictures, in a deluxe hardback edition with green stained edges, a ribbon marker, and an elegant foil-stamped cover.

With millions of copies in print around the world, Gregory Maguire's Wicked is established not only as a sharp social commentary on our time but as a novel to revisit for years to come. This classic Oz retelling relishes the inspired inventions of L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, while playing sleight of hand with our collective memories of the 1939 MGM film. In this fast-paced, fantastically real, and supremely entertaining story, Maguire has populated the largely unknown world of Oz with the power of his own imagination. 

This is the unforgettable villain origin story of Elphaba, a little girl who makes her presence known in Oz years before Dorothy and her dog crash-land. Born with emerald-green skin, Elphaba carries a heavy burden in a land as mean and poor as Oz, where superstition and magic are not strong enough to explain or overcome the natural disasters of flood and famine. Still, Elphaba is smart, and by the time she enters Shiz University, she becomes a member of a charmed circle of Oz's most promising young citizens.

But in this dark political fantasy, Elphaba's Oz is no utopia. The Wizard's secret police are everywhere. Animals-those creatures with voices, souls, and minds-are threatened with exile. Young Elphaba, green and wild and misunderstood, is determined to protect the Animals-even if it means combating the mysterious Wizard, even if it means risking her single chance at romance. Ever wiser in guilt and sorrow, she can find herself grateful when the world declares her a witch. And she can even make herself glad for that young girl from Kansas. 

Recognized as an iconoclastic tour de force on its initial publication, the novel has inspired the blockbuster musical of the same name-one of the longest-running plays in Broadway history. Popular, indeed. But while the novel's distant cousins hail from the traditions of magical realism, mythopoeic fantasy, and sprawling nineteenth-century sagas of moral urgency, Maguire's Wicked is as unique as its green-skinned witch. 

"Maguire did something truly remarkable with this novel, in managing to inhabit, enlarge, deepen and find new dimensions in a world that had been invented by another writer, and in doing so make something entirely new. It's an astonishing achievement." -Phillip Pullman

"Gregory gets the complications and uniqueness of women very well."- Kristen Chenoweth

"It's a staggering feat of wordcraft, made no less so by the fact that its boundaries were set decades ago by somebody else. Maguire's larger triumph here is twofold: First, in Elphaba, he has created (re-created? renovated?) one of the great heroines in fantasy literature: a fiery, passionate, unforgettable and ultimately tragic figure. Second, Wicked is the best fantasy novel of ideas I've read since Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast or Frank Herbert's Dune. Would that all books with this much innate consumer appeal were also this good. And vice versa." -Los Angeles Times