Raymond E. Feist

Raymond E. Feist (born 1945) is an American fantasy author best known for Magician (1982) and the long Riftwar Cycle set on the worlds of Midkemia and Kelewan, whose books have sold more than 15 million copies.

He was born Raymond Elias Gonzales III in Los Angeles in December 1945 and took the surname of his stepfather, Felix E. Feist. He graduated from the University of California, San Diego, in 1977 with a BA in communication arts. Midkemia began at UCSD as a role-playing world he devised with friends as an alternative to Dungeons & Dragons.

Magician, his debut, was published by Doubleday in October 1982 and opened both the Riftwar Saga and the wider Riftwar Cycle. For the American market it was divided into two volumes, Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master, and a tenth-anniversary Author's Preferred Edition of 1992 restored cut scenes and reworked other passages. The Riftwar Saga continued with Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon, and the Empire trilogy began with Daughter of the Empire. Faerie Tale (Doubleday, 1 February 1988), set in New York State, is his only novel wholly outside the Riftwar universe. Later work includes the Firemane trilogy (2018 to 2022) and the Dragonwar Saga, whose first book came out in August 2024.

For collectors. The first edition of Magician is the 1982 Doubleday hardback, published in October 1982, which predates both the two-volume American split and the revised 1992 text. Collectors should note which version a copy contains, since the Author's Preferred Edition differs from the original.