 First edition | |
| Author | Gregory Maguire |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Douglas Smith |
| Cover artist | Douglas Smith |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Wicked Years |
| Genre | Fantasy |
| Publisher | ReganBooks |
Publication date | 1995 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 560 |
| ISBN | 0-06-039144-8 |
| OCLC | 32746783 |
| 813/.54 20 | |
| LC Class | PS3563.A3535 W5 1995 |
| Followed by | Son of a Witch |
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West is a 1995dark fantasynovel by American writerGregory Maguire with illustrations by Douglas Smith. It is the first inThe Wicked Years series, and was followed bySon of a Witch (September 2005),A Lion Among Men (October 2008), andOut of Oz (November 2011).
Wicked is a cynical, adult-orientedrevision of thecharacters andsetting ofL. Frank Baum's 1900 children's novelThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz, along with itssequels and1939 film adaptation. The novel is presented as abiography of theWicked Witch of the West, here given the nameElphaba Thropp. The book follows Elphaba from her birth through her social ostracism, school years,radicalization, and final days. Maguire shows the traditionally villainous character in a sympathetic light, using her journey to explore theproblem of evil and thenature versus nurture debate, as well as themes of terrorism, propaganda, and existential purpose.
In 2003, the novel was loosely adapted as theTony Award–winningBroadway musicalWicked, in-turn adapted into a two-part feature film, with thefirst film released in November 2024 and thesecond film released in November 2025.
Maguire began contemplating the nature ofevil while living in London in the early 1990s. He noticed that while the problem of evil had been explored from many different perspectives, those perspectives were seldom synthesized together.[1] He wondered whether calling a person evil might be enough to cause aself-fulfilling prophecy.
If everyone was always calling you a bad name, how much of that would you internalize? How much of that would you say, all right, go ahead, I'll be everything that you call me because I have no capacity to change your minds anyway so why bother. By whose standards should I live?[2]
He was also inspired by the 1993murder of James Bulger, in which both victim and perpetrators were young children.
Everyone was asking: how could those boys be so villainous? Were they born evil or were there circumstances that pushed them towards behaving like that? It propelled me back to the question of evil that bedevils anybody raisedCatholic.[3]
Up to that point strictly a children's author, Maguire had difficulty finding an effective way to write about evil, since in his mind, there were no truly evil characters in children's literature. In what he later described as "the one great revelation of my life," Maguire realized that there were in fact villains in children's books; however, they were usually written as one-dimensionalstock characters in order to provoke a quick emotional reaction from young readers. Wondering whom to write about, he envisioned the Wicked Witch of the West, as played byMargaret Hamilton in the MGM film, delivering her iconic line, "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!"[4] Maguire had a lifelong fascination withTheWizard of Oz, both Baum's original novel and the film, which he watched every year during its annual broadcast.[1][5] He decided to tell the Wicked Witch's life story using the same large scale and broad moral messages found in the novels ofCharles Dickens.[3]
In theLand of Oz, a minister's wife, Melena Thropp, gives birth to a daughter, Elphaba. Elphaba has green skin, sharp teeth, a savage demeanor, and a fear of water. The story details Elphaba's difficult childhood beforeflashing forward to show her at Shiz University with hersocial climbing roommate Galinda, who is destined to becomeGlinda.
While at Shiz, the two girls discover that Oz is rife with political tension. Headmistress and Ozianpower broker Madame Morrible suggests that Elphaba and Glinda work for her from behind the scenes to help stabilize the political situation in Oz. Preferring more direct action, Elphaba and Glinda travel to theEmerald City, where they meet theWizard and plead their case. When the Wizard dismisses their concerns, Elphaba takes matters into her own hands. She goes into hiding and joins an underground terrorist group working out of the Emerald City.
Five years later, Elphaba reconnects with former schoolmate Prince Fiyero, now married with three children, and the two begin an illicit affair. While Elphaba makes an attempt at assassinating Madame Morrible, Fiyero is caught in Elphaba's hideout and arrested by the Wizard's secret police force. Blaming herself for his capture, Elphaba takes refuge in aconvent. Seven years later, she visits Fiyero's family at their castle, Kiamo Ko, in hopes of gaining their forgiveness. She brings along a boy named Liir, her son by Fiyero. Fiyero's family allow her to stay as their guest, but his wife Sarima refuses to hear her apology. While there, Elphaba finds the Grimmerie, a book of spells and magic, and begins to studysorcery, gaining a reputation as awitch.
Elphaba's father asks for her help with her sister Nessarose, who has also become a witch and has taken Elphaba's hereditary position as ruler ofMunchkinland. Tired of being used as a pawn in other people's agendas and having no interest in ruling, Elphaba instead renounces her claim. Nessarose promises to give Elphaba her enchanted silver shoes after she dies. When Elphaba returns to Kiamo Ko, she discovers the Wizard's troops have taken Fiyero's family prisoner.
Seven years later, a storm visits Munchkinland, dropping a farmhouse on Nessarose and killing her. The farmhouse's passengers are a little girl namedDorothy Gale and her little dog,Toto. Elphaba and Glinda reunite for the first time in years shortly after Nessarose's death. Upon learning Glinda sent Dorothy off with Nessarose's shoes, for fear of their power igniting a civil war in Munchkinland, Elphaba is furious, as the shoes were rightfully hers. She fears the shoes will fall into the hands of the Wizard, who may use them to further advance his power and political agenda.
Elphaba meets with the Wizard to beg for the release of Fiyero's family in exchange for the Grimmerie. The Wizard explains that he has killed them all except for Fiyero's daughter Nor, whom he keeps as a slave. He explains that he comes from a different world, the same world the book comes from, and is not bound by the laws of Oz. Elphaba then seeks out the elderly Madame Morrible to complete the assassination she failed at years earlier, only to discover that she had died, mere moments before Elphaba arrived. After bludgeoning the old woman's corpse, Elphaba learns from the Clock of the Time Dragon that the Wizard is her biological father, making her the child of two different worlds and thus destined never to fit in anywhere. She returns to Kiamo Ko and Liir informs her he has learned from soldiers stationed nearby that the Wizard has sent Dorothy and her companions on a mission to kill Elphaba.
When Dorothy and her friends arrive at Kiamo Ko, she tells Elphaba that while the Wizard sent her with orders to "kill the Wicked Witch of the West," Dorothy came to apologize for killing Nessarose. Furious that Dorothy is asking for the forgiveness she herself has been denied, Elphaba waves her burning broom in the air and inadvertently sets her skirt on fire. Dorothy throws a bucket of water on her to save her, unaware that Elphaba is allergic to water. The water melts her away.
Dorothy returns to the Wizard with a green bottle, which he recognizes as the potion he used to drug Melena years earlier. He hastily departs the Emerald City for his own world mere hours before a coup would have overthrown and killed him. The book ends with political chaos reigning over Oz.
According to author Maguire,Wicked is primarily about identifying with someone who is ostracized.[3]The Gazette calledWicked "a cautionary tale...about what happens when we as a society decide to label anyone who differs from the norm as evil."[6]
Prior to writingWicked, Maguire became interested in examining the nature of evil from the perspective of someone considered evil.[1] He noted that while Baum had deliberately avoided using traditional fairy tale characters in writing the original novel, the Wicked Witch of the West was the sole exception, being depicted as the stereotypical "witch in her castle" figure, with wickedness her single defining character trait.[7] The novel raises the question of whether evil isinborn or acquired. Elphaba is a social outcast despite being of noble birth, which makes her question how much power she truly has over her own life.[8]
Writing forThe American Experience, Rebecca Onion calledWicked "an extended meditation on power and politics."[9] Maguire has noted the similarities between the words "wicked" and "Hitler," calling it "no accident" that he chose this title for his book. He recalled reading a newspaper headline in 1991 comparingSaddam Hussein toAdolf Hitler and feeling firsthand the emotional power of propaganda.[6] Maguire "set out to examine the language and propaganda used to marshal brute force against individuals or minorities that might have been opposed to the war."[10] In the book, one major plank of the Wizard's agenda involves the subjugation of sapient Animals[8] and Madame Morrible promotes this idea using a type of moralistic poem called a "quell." Elphaba instantly sees the propaganda for what it is.[11]
Tor noted thatterrorism, committed both by and against the state, plays a major role in the second half of the book. The Wizard keeps anSS-likesecret police, the Gale Force, which uses violence to carry out his totalitarian agenda. Elphaba similarly uses terrorism to combat them,[9] though she shies away from targeting children.[8]
A lifelong Catholic, Maguire remembered the nuns who taught in theCatholic schools of his boyhood home ofAlbany, New York. He admired their sense of purpose and dedication to their cause, saying that their integrity and inscrutability made them witches in his mind.[12] Elphaba discovers her own purpose as a student at Shiz University, where the murder of her favorite professor, Dr. Dillamond, inspires her to join the cause of Animal rights.[13] As the story progresses, she deepens her commitment to her cause, becoming a political exile for her beliefs.[8][14]
Wicked is on its face a revisionistparallel novel forThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz.The Independent compared it toWide Sargasso Sea andWild Wood as part of "a fascinating sub-genre of novels that revisit well-known stories as much in the spirit of criticism as homage."[14] While previous authors had accepted the existing moral framework of the Oz stories,Wicked showed affection for the originals while simultaneously questioning everything they stood for. Maguire presents a sympathetic view of a villainous character by detailing her life story and helping the reader understand how "an innocent if rather green and biting child" can become "a still moralistic terrorist."[8] He also transformed the Land of Oz itself, changing what he saw as an insular, parochial world into one where different groups and their political agendas intersect and overlap.[9]
Wicked received mostly positive reviews.Publishers Weekly called it a "fantastical meditation on good and evil, God and free will" which combined "puckish humor and bracing pessimism."[15]Kirkus Reviews called it "A captivating, funny, and perceptive look at destiny, personal responsibility, and the not-always-clashing beliefs of faith and magic."Library Journal recommended the book to "good readers who like satire, and love exceedingly imaginative and clever fantasy." TheLos Angeles Times favorably comparedWicked with other "fantasy novels of ideas" such asGormenghast andDune.[16]
The New York Times was a notable outlier, criticizing the novel's strident politics and moral relativism. ReviewerMichiko Kakutani argued that Maguire "shows little respect for Baum's original story."Wicked, she felt, "turns a wonderfully spontaneous world of fantasy into a lugubrious allegorical realm, in which everything and everyone is labeled with a topical name tag."[13]
In 2005, ten years after its publication,Wicked spent 26 weeks on theNew York Times bestseller list.[17] The novel has sold five million copies since its 1995 publication.[18]
In 2003, the novel was adapted as the Broadway musicalWicked by composer/lyricistStephen Schwartz and librettistWinnie Holzman. The musical was produced byUniversal Pictures and directed byJoe Mantello, with musical staging byWayne Cilento. The Broadway production was followed by long-running productions in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles in the United States, as well as London, Germany, and Japan. It was nominated for tenTony Awards, winning three, and is the 4th longest-running Broadway show in history, with over 8,500 performances. The original Broadway production starredIdina Menzel as Elphaba andKristin Chenoweth as Glinda.[19]
In a 2009 interview, Maguire stated that he had sold the rights to ABC to make an independent non-musical TV adaptation ofWicked. It would not be based onWinnie Holzman's script.[20] On January 9, 2011,Entertainment Weekly reported that ABC would be teaming up withSalma Hayek and her production company to create a TV miniseries ofWicked based solely on Maguire's novel.[21] The miniseries never entered production.
In September 2010,Filmshaft disclosed that Universal Pictures was beginning work on a film adaptation of the stage musical.[22] In December 2012, following the success ofLes Misérables,[23][24]Marc Platt, also a producer of the stage version, announced the film was going ahead,[25] later confirming the film was aiming for a 2016 release.[26] Universal announced in 2016 that the film would be released in theaters on December 22, 2021, withStephen Daldry directing.[27] After production was shut down during the 2020Coronavirus pandemic,[28] Daldry left the production due to scheduling conflicts[29] and was replaced byJon M. Chu.[28]Cynthia Erivo andAriana Grande were cast as Elphaba and Galinda, respectively, withJonathan Bailey as Fiyero.[30]
Thefirst film of the two-part adaptation was released on November 22, 2024, and thesecond film was released on November 21, 2025.[31]
In March 2025, William Morrow Paperbacks published the first volume of a graphic novel adaptation ofWicked, with illustrations byScott Hampton.[32]
