The Last Wish

The Last Wish is a collection of seven linked short stories and the correct first Witcher book. Geralt of Rivia is introduced case by case: a striga in a crypt, a devil in a field, a grain of truth in a monster's manor, and the lesser evil in Blaviken that names him the Butcher of it. The framing device of Geralt recovering at the temple of Melitele in Ellander strings the stories into a portrait of a profession and a man.

The current standard US edition is the Orbit trade paperback new edition of July 5, 2022, 9780316452465. The original Orbit US mass market paperback was 9780316029186. An illustrated hardcover exists at 9780316333528, and the Gollancz UK paperback of 2020 is 9781473231061. The Last Wish is also half of the Stories boxed set with Sword of Destiny, 9780316565165.

The Japanese edition is verified: Hayakawa Bunko FT published it as the first Witcher short story collection on December 24, 2021, at 9784150206086. That date is a small history lesson in itself: the novels reached Japanese in saga order years earlier, while the story collections arrived later, a reverse of the English experience.

Dark Horse has been adapting this book's stories as hardcover graphic novels since 2022: A Grain of Truth at 9781506726953, The Lesser Evil at 9781506726960 and The Edge of the World at 9781506726984, with further adaptations listed for 2025 and 2026. The prose collection remains the primary text; the adaptations are covered on the comics pages.

For a buyer, the 2022 Orbit paperback is the reading copy, the illustrated hardcover is the shelf copy, and the ISBN check that matters is simply matching the format you intended: three different books share this title on a listings page.