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 much-anticipated origin 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 in this must-read fantasy series opener 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 talking 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 fraught sisterhood
and 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.
