Speculative Visions
GUIN, Ursula Le THE EARTHSEA TRILOGY: A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore. London: Victor Gollancz. 1971, 1972, 1973
Three volumes, 8vo. Publishers original brown, green and grey cloth bound with gilt titles to all spines and encased in the David Smee illustrated dustwrappers, pp. I: [xii], 13-191; II: [x], 11-159 + [i]; III: [xiii], 9-206 + [1], Pictorial map endpapers in Farthest Shore and one map in each volume; minor bumping on the corners of The Tombs of Atuan, spines of the dust wrapper slightly sunned, otherwise near fine.
First UK Editions, first printings.
Ursula Le Guin was one of the most prolific science fiction novelists of the 20th Century. She established a lyrical, speculative writing prose that subverted conventional cliches of a genre mostly dominated by the man and she did so by configuring radical worlds, some devoid of fixed gender (The Left hand of Darkness, 1969) and others which abandoned prominent Sci-fi tropes. As she is quoted in a Paris Review Interview by John Wray of 2013; "I draw on the social sciences a great deal. I get a lot of ideas from them, particularly from anthropology. When I create another planet, another world, with a society on it, I try to hint at the complexity of the society I’m creating, instead of just referring to an empire". Le Guin criticized what she perceived to be the general expectation in fantasy that characters should be white and that society should assume the structure of an old, medieval heirachy.
First published in the US, these first three volumes of the iconic six volume set were originally penned for children but swiftly gained a wider audience, and were written over decades where they are now regarded as modern literary classics. The award-winning first book in the series, A Wizard of Earthsea, arguably the authors most prestigious book, has been described by critic and author, Amanda Craig, writing for The Guardian, as "the most thrilling, wise and beautiful children's novel ever", and by author Margaret Atwood as one of the "wellsprings" of imaginative writing.
In essence it is a coming-of-age tale about a young mage, Duny, known as "Sparrowhawk", who develops extraordinary powers in his youth, in his village on the island of Gont, near the fictional archipelago of Earthsea. As a child he saves his people from invading Kargish raiders by drawing down a fog to encircle them. A powerful mage, Orgion, hears of his feat and takes him under his wing as an apprentice,…
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