So You Want to Be a Wizard

The first novel in the Young Wizards series.

Publication history (English-language only. Foreign editions have separate entries under their own titles):

• First-edition hardcover, Delacorte Press, 1983: ISBN 0-385-29035-4.
• First mass-market paperback, Laurel-Leaf Books, 1986: ISBN 0-440-98252-9.
• UK first mass-market paperback edition: Corgi Books, 1991: ISBN 0-552-52645-2.

Subsequent US mass-market paperback editions:

• Magic Carpet Books, June 1996: ISBN 0-15-201239-7.
• Troll Books paperback edition: same ISBN as Magic Carpet MM.

Subsequent US hardcover editions:

• 20th-anniversary hardcover edition, Harcourt Books, July 2003: ISBN 0-15-204738-7.

(Please note that this list is not yet complete.)

Back-cover blurb:

"Something stopped Nita's hand as it ran along the bookshelf. She looked and found that one of the books, a little library-bound volume in shiny red buckram, had a loose thread at the top of its spine, on which her finger had caught. She pulled the finger free, glanced at the title. It was one of those "So You Want to Be a..." books, a series on careers. So You Want to Be a Pilot there had been, and So You Want to Be a Scientist... a Nurse... a Writer...

But this one said, So You Want to Be a Wizard.

I don't believe this, Nita thought. She shut the book and stood there holding it in her hand, confused, amazed, suspicious...and delighted. If it was a joke, it was a great one. If it wasn't...?"