Order now to receive the stunning DELUXE LIMITED EDITION— only available on the first printing
while supplies last! The collector’s hardcover features stenciled edges and a color illustrated
map of Oz. What happened to young Elphaba before her witchy powers took hold in Wicked ?
Almost 30 years after the publication of the original novel for the first time Gregory Maguire
reveals the story of prickly young Elphie the future Wicked Witch of the West—setting the
stage for the blockbuster international phenomenon that is Wicked : The Musical. Elphaba the
Wicked Witch of the West will grow to have a feisty and somewhat uncompromising character in
adult life. But she is always a one-off from her infancy Elphie is the riveting coming-of-age
story of a very peculiar and relatable young girl. Young Elphie is shaped and molded by the
behaviors of her promiscuous mother Melena and her pious father Frex. She suffers ordinary
childhood jealousies when her sister saintly Nessarose and brother junior felon Shell
arrive. She first encounters the mistreatment of the Animal populations of Oz which live
adjacent to but not intertwined with human settlements haunted by a Monkey and receiving aid
from Dwarf Bears. She thrashes through her first bruising attempts at friendship a possible
lifeline from her tricky family life. And she gleans the benefits of an education haphazard
though it must be—until she arrives at the doors of Shiz University about to meet the radiant
creature that is Galinda. Elphie is destined to be a witch she bears the markings from
childhood—most evidently in her green skin but more obscurely and profoundly in her cunning and
perhaps amoral behaviors as she seeks to make do to slip by to sneak out to endure and to
aspire.
