Written not so long after "Tolkien mania" first gripped the United States in the 1960s, Ursula K. Le Guin's novel A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) has long been recognized as a classic of the fantasy genre, and the series of Earthsea books that followed on it over the next several decades earned its author both considerable sales and critical accolades. This new introduction to the text will closely contextualize the original novel in relation to its heady decade of composition and publication a momentous time for genre publishing and also survey the half century and more of scholarship on Earthsea, which has shifted in direction and emphasis many times over the decades, just as surely as Le Guin frequently adjusted her own sails when composing later works set in the fantasy world. Above all, this book positions A Wizard of Earthsea as perhaps an "old text" that nevertheless belongs in a "new canon," a key novel in the author's career and the genre in which it participates, and one that at once looks back to Tolkien and his own antecedents in masculinist early fantasy; looks forward to Le Guin's own continuing feminist and progressive education; and anticipates and indeed helped to shape young adult literature in its contemporary form.

Provides a guide to the long history behind the series and its popular and scholarly reception Contextualizes the novel's publication in relation to the emergence of fantasy literature Highlights Le Guin's treatment of gender, sexuality, and race

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Timothy S. Miller is an Assistant Professor of English at Florida Atlantic University, USA, where he contributes to the department's MA degree concentration in Science Fiction and Fantasy. He has previously written a critical companion on Ursula K. Le Guin's novel A Wizard of Earthsea for the series 'Palgrave Science Fiction and Fantasy: A New Canon', and now serves as series co-editor with Dr. Anna McFarlane.

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1 The Boy Wizard and the Young Grand Master.- References.- 2 BetweenChildren's Literature and Adult Fantasy: The Antecedents and Audiences of A Wizard of Earthsea.-Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Old King Arthur: Earthsea and Its Predecessors.- Earthsea Pedagogies: Learning to Live in an Enchanted World.- References.-3 Fantasy and the Weight of Whiteness: Racial Dynamics in Earthsea.- A Wizard of Earthsea in Black and White: Uncoupling Whiteness and Goodness.- Illustration, Adaptation, and the Racial Politics of the Visual Imagination.- References.-4 Light and Shadow, Good and Evil: Ethical, Psychological, and Other Critical Approaches to the Fantastic.-A Brief Taxonomy of Critical Approaches to Le Guin.- The Way to Read Le Guin?: Earthsea and Daoism.- Fantasy and the Unconscious: Jung and the Nature of the Shadow.-References.- 5 Bringing Women to Roke Knoll: Gender and the Lifelong Evolution of Earthsea.- Introduction: Reimagining Earthsea.-You need not fear a woman: The Witch and the Sorceress.- Ennobling Hearth and Home.- References.-6 Conclusion: Le Guin's Legacies in Fiction and in Scholarship.- The Schools for Wizards: Magical Pedagogy Today.- The Future(s) of Le Guin Studies.-References.