I dimly remember that I read the first three of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea books in my pre-teen years. I’m fairly certain that I came across them in the library of The International School of Lusaka, possibly in sixth or seventh grade. Maybe I got them in a bookstore in Lusaka, but that seems unlikely, as I think that I would have kept the copies (or not, as I had to give up quite a few of my books from that time when leaving Zambia and beyond).
The content of those three books, The Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, and The Farthest Shore, are lost in the mists of my memories. Occasionally I come across battered paperback copies of one or another of these books, but I’ve never bought them, not once in the intervening 40+ years since I first read them.
Then, by chance, I came across a pristine omnibus edition of the three books, as well as a fourth one, which I’d never read. It’s sub-titled “The first four books”; apparently there are two more set in this world. I think that I only read The Dispossessed by Le Guin. This is a UK edition, which somehow ended up in the USA.
The word “Earthsea” is a brilliant combination of two disparate words by Le Guin. There’s no preface, no introduction, no afterword. You simply dive into the book, into her world. The design from Penguin Books is brilliant. It even smells like a book is supposed to smell. I wonder, as I start the hourney to re-read these books, will they resonate the same way that they did those four plus decades ago? Likely not, but we shall see what happens.
*Brief note: The cover image here has a quote from Telegraph. My copy has a quote from Neil Gaiman, who I guess has been canceled these days.
