The Ultimate Fantasy Series Ranking

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Leigh Eddings

4 universes Last reviewed 2026-08-12

Leigh Eddings, born Judith Leigh Schall on September 30, 1937, in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, was an American fantasy novelist of partial Choctaw heritage who served in the United States Air Force before meeting her future husband, David Eddings, in Seattle. She died February 28, 2007, in Carson City, Nevada, at age sixty-nine. The couple married on October 27, 1962, and adopted two children, a son, Scott David, in 1966, and a daughter shortly thereafter. Leigh worked as an uncredited co-author on many of David Eddings's earliest novels, a collaboration publisher Lester del Rey discouraged from being formally acknowledged due to concerns about multi-author billing; she was first credited as co-author on Belgarath the Sorcerer in 1995 and continued to collaborate on his subsequent series through the 2000s. David Eddings described her as a world-class cook and a highly skilled angler and shooter. In 1969, the couple were convicted of child abuse and each served a one-year jail sentence, a difficult chapter in their personal history that came years before their major literary success. Leigh's contributions helped shape some of modern fantasy's best-loved epic series, even though formal recognition of her authorship came only late in their joint career.

Universe(s)

Belgariad Universe

  • Core Canon books: 12
  • Current rank: #168 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 4.14
  • Award recognitions: 7 finalist mention, 3 nomination

The Elenium Universe

  • Core Canon books: 6
  • Current rank: #402 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 4.01
  • Award recognitions: 1 finalist mention

The Redemption of Althalus

  • Core Canon books: 1
  • Current rank: #641 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.86
  • Award recognitions: None recorded

The Dreamers

  • Core Canon books: 4
  • Current rank: #864 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.33
  • Award recognitions: None recorded

Books

Aggregate across all universes

These are separate, unrelated universes; the totals below are plain sums of already-published per-universe facts, never a blended or averaged score across them. See each universe's own figures above.

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