Equal Rites by PRATCHETT, Terry - 1987

1987. London: Victor Gollancz, 1987. 8vo. Original green cloth with pictorial dust wrapper; pp.200; spine slightly faded, price-clipped, a very good copy. First Edition. The third book in the Discworld series, and the first appearance of Granny Weatherwax, a supporting character who would go on to become one of the iconic lynchpins of the Discworld canon, with all the subtlety of an actual cannon. The title is a pun on "Equal Rights" and describes the struggles of Eskarina Smith, who accidentally inherits a dead wizard's magic and struggles for acceptance in a society that declares that she couldn't possibly be a wizard because she's a girl, a notion she soon disabuses them of. The dust cover for Equal Rites was illustrated by Josh Kirby, who would work with Pratchett on many of his covers, and who included a self-portrait of himself as a wizard on the back cover. ‘If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly,’ said Granny, fleeing into aphorisms, the last refuge of an adult under siege.