The Last Wish

This article is about Sapkowski's first collection of short stories. For other uses, see The Last Wish (disambiguation).

The Last Wish

Publication information
Original	Ostatnie życzenie. SuperNOWA, 1993
Author	Andrzej Sapkowski
Translated by	Danusia Stok
Type	Short story collection
Published	Gollancz, June 2007 (UK) Orbit, May 2008 (US)
ISBN	978-0-575-07782-9 (UK) 978-0-316-02918-6 (US)
Preceded by	Season of Storms
Followed by	Sword of Destiny
Translations	More...

The Last Wish (Polish: Ostatnie życzenie) is the first book in Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher series in terms of internal chronology, although the original Polish edition was published in 1993, after Sword of Destiny. Some of the individual short stories were first published in the Fantastyka magazine or in the Wiedźmin short story collection (the first collection of Sapkowski's stories, out of print and now obsolete; all short stories were later collected in The Last Wish, Sword of Destiny and Coś się kończy, coś się zaczyna) and as such were the first witcher stories published.

UK ISBN's are as follows: ISBN 0575082445, ISBN 978-0575082441

Audible UK, in conjunction with Orion Books & Gollancz released The Last Wish on audio, February 27, 2014, only a few short weeks after it was announced. The Last Wish is read by Peter Kenny.

Stories included[ | ]

The anthology employs the story within a story framework and contains seven main short stories.

Geralt, after having been injured in battle, rests in a temple of Melitele in Ellander. During that time he has flashbacks to recent events in his life — each of which forms a story of its own.

The Voice of Reason (Głos rozsądku, framing story)
The Witcher (Wiedźmin)
A Grain of Truth (Ziarno prawdy)
The Lesser Evil (Mniejsze zło)
A Question of Price (Kwestia ceny)
The Edge of the World (Kraniec świata)
The Last Wish (Ostatnie życzenie)

Monsters[ | ]

Appearing and mentioned

Translations[ | ]

The book has been translated into Czech, Russian, Italian, Korean, Lithuanian, German, Spanish, Swedish, Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Serbian and Traditional Chinese in addition to English.

The Last Wish was the first of the Witcher's stories to be translated in English. The Last Wish was published in the United Kingdom by Gollancz in 2007 and in the United States by Orbit in April 2008.

Bulgarian: Вещерът. Последното желание, (ИнфоДар, 2008)
Czech: Poslední přání, (Leonardo, 1999)
German: Der letzte Wunsch, (Heyne, 1998)
English: The Last Wish, translated by Danusia Stok (UK – Gollancz, 2007, US – Orbit, 2008)
Spanish: El último deseo, translated by Jose María Faraldo (Bibliópolis fantástica, 2002)
Finnish: Viimeinen toivomus, translated by Tapani Kärkkäinen (WSOY 2010)
French: Le Dernier Vœu, (Bragelonne, 2003)
Hungarian: Vaják I. – Az utolsó kívánság, translated by Szathmáry-Kellermann Viktória (PlayON 2011)
Italian: Il Guardiano degli Innocenti, (Nord, 2010)
Korean: 위처:이성의 목소리, (제우미디어, 2011)
Lithuanian: Paskutinis noras, (Eridanas, 2005)
Dutch: De Laatste Wens, (Dutch Media Uitgevers, 2010)
Brazilian Portuguese: O Último Desejo, translated by Tomasz Barcinski (WMF Martins Fontes, 2011)
Russian: Последнее желание, translated by Евгений Вайсброт (АСТ, 1996)
Serbian: Последња жеља/Poslednja želja, translated by Olivera Duskov and Milan Duskov (IPS 2009)
Swedish: Den sista önskningen, (Coltso, 2010)
Traditional Chinese: 獵魔士 - 最後的願望, translated by 林蔚昀 (蓋亞文化, 2011)
Simplified Chinese: 猎魔人卷一：白狼崛起, translated by 小龙 (重庆出版社, 2015)
Turkish: Son Dilek, translated by Regaip Minareci (Pegasus Yayınları, 2016)

Audio versions[ | ]

There are two audio versions of The Last Wish available in Polish. Classic audiobook, lasting about 11 hours and read by Roch Siemianowski, was released by superNOWA (Polish publisher of Sapkowski's works) in 1996. In 2011, after huge success of audio play based on Sapkowski's Narrenturm, Fonopolis and audioteka.pl released audio plays based on The Last Wish and Miecz przeznaczenia. The Las Wish, lasting about 12 hours, was voiced by 52 actors, including Krzysztof Banaszyk (Vernon Roche in Assassins of Kings) as Geralt, Anna Dereszowska as Yennefer, Sławimir Pacek (minor characters in video games) as Dandelion and Krzysztof Gosztyła as narrator. Samples from all short stories can be found on audioteka.pl’s site.

Quotes on this wiki[ | ]

UK edition quotes in this wiki are taken from this edition: ISBN 978-0-575-07782-9
US edition quotes in this wiki are taken from this edition: ISBN 0-316-02918-1 (ISBN-10), ISBN 978-0-316-02918-6 (ISBN-13)

Bagiński movie[ | ]

A film version, which was announced for 2017 but never appeared, "will be based on themes from the short stories ‘The Witcher’ and ‘Lesser Evil’ from ‘The Last Wish’ collection. Tomasz Bagiński, who had been nominated for an Oscar for his film, ‘The Cathedral’, will be the director."^[1]

Gallery[ | ]

Polish editions[ | ]

First softcover edition
Second softcover edition
Third softcover edition
Hardcover edition (together with Sword of Destiny)
Fourth softcover edition, designed along with CD Projekt
Cover of audiobook/audio play
Cover of audiobook/audio play
Polish edition cover (Oct. 2014)
Cover of the "Wiedźmin" premium box (8 vol., Dec 2014)
Cover of the Polish premium edition (Dec 2014)

English editions[ | ]

UK hardcover and trade paperback edition (2007)
UK mass market paperback edition (2008)
US edition (2008)

Other language editions[ | ]

Swedish edition (2010)
Serbian edition (2012)
Вещерът. Последното желание
Bulgarian edition (2008)
Old Czech edition
Czech edition
Second Czech edition
Dutch edition
Finnish edition
French edition (2003)
French edition (2005)
French edition (2008)
French edition (2011)
First German edition
Second German edition
Hungarian edition
Italian Edition, Nord, 2010
Lithuanian edition of both The Last Wish and Miecz przeznaczenia, published by Eridanas, newer editions by Alma littera
Portuguese edition
Russian edition of both The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny
Spanish edition
Spanish edition, Alamut
Traditional Chinese edition (2011)
Brazilian edition (2011)
Simplified Chinese edition (2015)