The Ultimate Fantasy Series Ranking

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Gregory Maguire

1 universe Last reviewed 2026-09-11

Gregory Maguire was born on June 9, 1954, in Albany, New York. His mother died from complications shortly after his birth, and he spent six months in an orphanage before his father, who had remarried, reclaimed him at age two; he was educated in Catholic institutions and holds degrees from SUNY Albany (BA, 1976), Simmons University (MA, 1978), and Tufts University (PhD, 1990). He published his first novel, The Lightning Time, in 1978 at age twenty-four, and worked as a professor and co-director of Simmons College's Center for the Study of Children's Literature from 1979 to 1986, later co-founding Children's Literature New England in 1987 and serving as its co-director for twenty-five years. His career-defining work, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995), reimagines The Wizard of Oz from the perspective of its villain and had sold 500,000 copies by the time its Broadway musical adaptation opened in 2003; the novel spawned the four-book Wicked Years series (2005-2011) and, decades later, a two-part film adaptation (2024-2025). He has written numerous other novels reinterpreting classic fairy tales and children's literature for adult readers. Maguire met painter Andy Newman in 1997, and the couple married in 2004 in one of the first same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts; they adopted three children from Cambodia and Guatemala and live in Concord, Massachusetts, where Maguire remains a practicing Catholic.

Universe(s)

The Wicked Years

  • Core Canon books: 4
  • Current rank: #859 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.50
  • Award recognitions: None recorded

Books

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