Post by John VanSicklePost by zalzonIn the early 90s, a company called Legend released a game called
Spellcasting 101. <snip> You filled out an application for
Soucerer's University and escaped from your home.
<snip>
Post by John VanSicklePost by zalzonWhat I noticed is that the concept was ripped off by this Harry potter
stuff.
This is the active ingredient in Dungbombs.
The Legend people cannot claim that the concept of the wizard school was
theirs because the story idea has been around since, oh, The Earthsea
Trilogy, and wasn't a new idea then.
#1 Rule of Copyright: NOBODY OWNS IDEAS.
I see it's time to re-post the list of Wizard Schools. I've learned
of a couple more, anyway.
The first HP book was published in 1997; it was bought in 1996, JKR began
it in 1990. Regardless, nobody else saw it until part way through 1997.
So any book published in 1997 (which would also have been bought in 1996)
is totally and completely clear of any claims of having been influenced
by JKR. Furthermore, as John VanSickle wrote, the idea has been around
for a very long time. I've been collecting examples.
In reverse order, starting with 1997:
1997: Pierce, Tamora: "Circle of Magic" series begins with _Sandry's
Book_. kids go to a magic school where they live in a dormitory; there is
also a university of magic.
1996: Friesner, Esther: _Wishing Season_. Genies go to Genie School.
1995: Schweitzer, Darrell: _The Mask of the Sorcerer_. Students attend the
College of Shadows. not a kid's book, no way!
1995: Ball, Margaret: _Lost in Translation_. teen goes to the College of
Magical Arts and Sciences.
1994: Hambly, Barbara: _Stranger at the Wedding_ (in the UK, _Sorcerer's
Ward_) teen girl goes to the Citadel of Wizards magic school.
1994: Stevermer, Caroline: _A College of Magics_ teen girls attend
Greenlaw School for Witches.
1994: Bogen, K.B.: _Go Quest, Young Man_. teen goes to Sorcerer's
Apprentice School.
1993: Turtledove, Harry: _The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump_ mentions a
Professor Harvey Blanc, Chair of Goetic Sciences at the University of
California.
1993: Friesner, Esther: _Majyk by Accident_, a deliberately silly spoof of
the concept and the way some people mess around with the spelling of the
word, set at Thengor's Academy of High Wizardry.
1992: Modesitt, L.E.Jr.: _The Magic of Recluce_. The Brothers are ruled
by The Institute.
1992: Lisle, Holly: _Fire in the Mist_ The university of Women's Magic is
Daane University; the men's equivalent is Faulea University.
1991: Yolen, Jane: _Wizard's Hall_ takes place at, obviously, Wizard's
Hall.
1991: Brittain, C.Dale: _A Bad Spell in Yurt_, the unnamed wizard school
is at collegiate level.
1990: deCamp, L. Sprague: _Sir Harold and the Gnome King_, a completion of
his much earlier work The Compleat Enchanter, involving one scene at the
University of Unholy Names. (See 1941, Dr. John Clark, who wrote it up in
the 1930s)
1990: Doyle and Macdonald: "Circle of Magic" series (unrelated to Tamora
Pierce's later use of the same title), _School of Wizardry_, set at the
Schola Sorceriae at Tarnsberg.
1989: Tarr, Judith: _Ars Magica_ Pope Alexander II learns magic in tenth
century Spain, then founds a school with an Inner School for magic
lessons.
1988: Horowitz, Anthony: _Groosham Grange_, a boy finds out his new school
is a school of dark magic
1988: Wrede, Patricia and Caroline Stevermer: _Sorcery and Cecelia_
mentions a Royal College of Wizards.
1988: Kurland, Michael: _Ten Little Wizards_ continuation of Randall
Garrett's Lord Darcy series, mentions mantic arts courses. (See 1978)
1988: Jones, Diana Wynne: _The Lives of Christopher Chant_, he attends
Penge School, where he took the ordinary magic classes for ordinary kids,
along with English, maths, etc.
1987: Hawke, Simon: _The Wizard of 4th Street_. Merlin, freed after a
disaster, sets up wizard schools all over the world. The best book of the
series is _The Nine Lives of Catseye Gomez_
1987: Gilliland, Alexis: _Shadow Shaia_, 2nd volume of the Wizenbeak
trilogy. Dr. Wizenbeak studied with Dr. Raswisenji but the school alumni
society lost track of him when he stopped sending money.
1986: Friesner, Esther: _Harlot's Ruse_. the young man goes off to an
unnamed magic university.
1983: Pratchett, Terry: _The Colour of Magic_, the first book in his
Discworld series, mentions Unseen University and also unnamed universities
of magic, such as the one at Krull.
1982: Low, Alice: _Genie and the Witch's Spells_ book for small children,
a child trades spelling lessons for math lessons from a young witch who
was expelled from Witch School.
1979: Schweitzer, Darrell: short story "The Final? Murder? of Eleven
Thios?" - not a kid's story! - has a magic university on the Isle of
Sorcerers.
1978: Garrett, Randall: a song set in his Lord Darcy universe, "The Duke
of Normandy", ends with "I'll take him to the School of Sorcery".
1977: Jones, Diana Wynne: _Charmed Life_, and the rest of the Chrestomanci
series; Chrestomanci runs a small, private boarding school for top-class
wizards.
1974: Murphy, Jill: _The Worst Witch_. Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches.
a girls' boarding school series.
1971: Stewart, Mary: _The Little Broomstick_. a girl helps a black cat
rescue its brother.
1971: the movie version of Bedknobs and Broomsticks, loosely based on Mary
Norton's books, has a correspondence school for witchcraft that was not in
the books.
1968: LeGuin, Ursula: _A Wizard of Earthsea_. the young wizard attends
the School at Roke, a full-fledged boarding school of wizardry.
1941: deCamp, L.Sprague, and Fletcher Pratt: The Complete Enchanter. Duke
Astolph attended Winchester, which has Merlin on the Board of Trustees.
1941: Hubbard, L. Ron: "The Case of the Friendly Corpse", in _Unknown
Worlds_ magazine, used the magazine's standard school, the College of
Unholy Names, invented in the 1930s by Dr. John D. Clark and his friend
Mark Baldwin.
1938: White, T.H.: _The Sword in the Stone_ - the _first_ version, not the
rewrite - mentioned that Madame Mim had attended Dom-Daniel, the college
for Witches and Warlocks under the sea.
1897: Stoke, Bram: _Dracula_ Van Helsing says that Dracula had attended
the Scholamance school of Dark Arts, amongst the mountains over Lake
Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due.
1850? Balzac, Honore de: _The Secret of Ruggier_. Ruggier attended a
secret university for the study of the occult sciences.
1797-1800: Southey, Robert: _Thalaba the Destroyer_, a long poem. In the
Preface to the fourth edition, he said that the continuation of the
Arabian Knights tales had mentioned the DomDaniel, a seminary for evil
magicians under the roots of the sea. Book Two Stanza 2: "In the
Domdaniel caverns, Under the Roots of the Ocean/ Met the masters of the
Spell."
14th-15th century: "The Four Sons of Aymon", one of the chansons de gestes
relating to Aymon and his cousin the necromancer Malagigi, probably based
on ballads about Charles the Bald and his men. Malagigi "learned his
black art in the famous school of Toledo."
=Tamar