The Mislaid Magician (33 page)
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Authors: Patricia C. Wrede,Caroline Stevermer
Patricia with Star Wars Stormtroopers outside of the St. Paul Saints baseball field in St. Paul, Minnesota. A Jedi threw out the opening pitch and Darth Vader showed up several times during the game.
Patricia outside her home near Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Caroline Stevermer (b. 1955) is an author best known for her historical fantasy novels for young adults. Raised on a Minnesota dairy farm, she began writing stories at the age of eight. Despite a fascination with the epic works of J. R. R. Tolkien and Ursula K. Le Guin, Stevermer did not consider writing seriously until her first day at Bryn Mawr College, when the sight of a manuscript by fantasy author Ellen Kushner inspired her to try writing novels.
In 1981 and 1982, she published her first two books as C. J. Stevermer:
The Alchemist
and
The Duke and the Veil
. In 1987 she contributed a short story,
Cenedwine Brocade
, to the Liavek series, a shared world brought to life in a series of five fantasy anthologies. Shortly thereafter, she began writing with fellow Liavek contributor Patricia C. Wrede.
Similarities in style and a shared interest in historical fiction made Stevermer and Wrede’s partnership a great success. Together they created an alternate version of Regency England, combining the Industrial Revolution era with a magical world. The first book in this fantasy series,
Sorcery and Cecelia
(1988) introduces cousins Kate and Cecelia, who trade letters telling of their encounters with the wizarding members of polite society.
Wrede and Stevermer returned to that world more than a decade later with
The Grand Tour
(2004), which follows Kate and Cecelia as they get embroiled in mysterious plots while on a tour of Europe.
The Mislaid Magician
(2006) concludes the series, recounting the adventures of Kate and Cecelia during England’s railway expansion.
In between her collaborations with Wrede, Stevermer found success with the Mark Twain–inspired
River Rats
(1991) and
A College of Magics
(1994), whose tales of life in a European witch’s academy were partly based on her time at Bryn Mawr.
In 1998, Stevermer contributed a story to
The Essential Bordertown
, a collection of fiction set in Terri Winding’s Borderlands universe. Stevermer’s most recent novel,
Magic Below Stairs
(2010), takes place in the world described in
Sorcery and Cecelia
, and tells the story of Frederick, a Victorian orphan who wins a job as a wizard’s footboy. Frederick must rely on a magical creature named Billy Bly to guide him through life in the servants’ quarters.
Stevermer continues to live and write in Minnesota, where she spends as much time as possible in the reading room at the Minneapolis public library.
The Stevermer family in 1959, before the author’s younger brother was born. Caroline is the youngest here, standing in front of her parents with sister Patricia and brother Michael.
On a family trip to Hannibal, Missouri, at age three.
Stevermer grew up on a farm in southeastern Minnesota. This photo was taken the day her family got their first horse—the culmination of Stevermer’s childhood dreams.
Stevermer in 1976 at age twenty-one, when she was a senior in college. The author attended Bryn Mawr College, where she graduated with a BA in art history.
In 1981, when Stevermer was twenty-six, she visited France.
Stevermer in 1991, on the Mississippi River at St. Anthony Falls. (Photo courtesy of Joey McLeister.)
Stevermer in Minneapolis in 2006. (Photo courtesy of Katrina Nesse.)
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 2006 by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
cover design by Angela Goddard
978-1-4532-5468-4
This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
