Quote:
Originally Posted by hildea
Thank's for the recommendation! I've read and enjoyed other books by Novik, I'll seek out that one!
I'll have to quibble with part of the premise of this thread, though  The Magic (High) School genre is much, much older than Hogwarts. Le Guin's Wizard of Earthsea (published in 1968) springs to mind, where a poor boy (I think an orphan?) is admitted to a prestigious magic school, has problems fitting in because he has a much more humble background than the other students, and turns out to have some extraordinary talents. Looking in my bookshelf, I also find A College of Magics by Stevermeer, published 1994 (also recommended!). I'm sure there are many others.
Rowling's books gave the genre a boost, but that doesn't mean she invented it.
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It been a while since I read it but I'm not sure the "magic school" theme was very prominent (in A Wizard of Earthsea)? Doing a quick look at the book, it looks like he leaves the school after 100 pages (of a 300 page book). And subsequent books didn't feature the school?
There was another thread requesting such genre books, and going from memory, there were not many older books mentioned, as I recall.
And FWIW, A Deadly Education and A Wizard of Earthsea don't come under "wizardy schools" on Amazon (I'm guessing they don't have such a genre).