Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
core novel 1995 The Wicked Years
Record
| First published | 1995 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.50 (694,298 ratings, collected 2026-09-11) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780060391447 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
Wicked reimagines the world of L. Frank Baum's Oz stories by giving a sympathetic, full-length account of the woman who becomes known as the Wicked Witch of the West, here named Elphaba Thropp. The novel traces her unusual birth and childhood, marked by green skin and a temperament that isolates her from those around her, through her years at Shiz University, where she studies alongside the future Glinda and becomes politically radicalized against the authoritarian rule of the Wizard of Oz. As Elphaba's convictions deepen into open opposition to the Wizard's regime, the novel follows how a young woman shaped by rejection, principle and loss over the course of decades comes, in the eyes of Oz's official history, to be remembered simply as a villain.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Wicked Years
- Series: The Wicked Years core; position 1 of 4 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Gregory Maguire
Notes
- From the series record (The Wicked Years): Complete four-novel quartet (1995-2011) reframing L. Frank Baum's Oz from the witches' side, beginning with Elphaba's life story. Wicked is the basis for the hit Broadway musical and 2024/2025 film adaptations. A separate, unrelated work from this project's already-admitted L. Frank Baum Oz universe (a deliberate retelling of it, not the same underlying continuity).
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series The Wicked Years: position 1 of 4: next Son of a Witch (2005)
Sources
- Wikipedia: The Wicked Years
- Wikipedia: Wicked (Maguire novel)
- Reader rating aggregator: Gregory Maguire author list
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked:_The_Life_and_Times_of_the_Wicked_Witch_of_the_West
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