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Three Generations of Magic Between E. Nesbit, C.S. Lewis, and Lev Grossman
As I read E. Nesbit’s The Story of the Amulet, a tale of children’s magical adventures, a feeling of familiarity came over me. This 1906 book seemed to anticipate C. S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, published almost exactly half a century later (1955) but, unlike the rest of the Narnia series, set back in the…
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The Magicians and The Magician King: Review
Reviewed in this essay: The Magicians by Lev Grossman. Viking Press, 2009. The Magician King by Lev Grossman. Viking Press, 2011. Lev Grossman’s books The Magicians and The Magician King are fantasy as it ought to be: dark, funny, and brilliantly realized. The books cannot avoid comparisons to Harry Potter — geeky boy, magical school,…