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The Witcher reading order: How to read Andrzej Sapkowski's books in chronological and release order

There are Three Different Ways to Read the Witcher—Chronologically, Original print order and by U.S. release order.

Features by Jim McDermott, Contributing writer

Published on Mon Jul 03 2023

One of the wild things about the Witcher TV show is the way that it plays with time. Season one presents episodes out of chronological order without telling us. The 2022 prequel mini Witcher: Blood Origin actually involves characters connected both to the present and future of the main show. And who knows what’s yet to come.

The books are in some ways even more complicated. As in the first season of the TV show, the stories of Andrzej Sapkowski’s first book, The Last Wish, occur out of order chronologically. The story then proceeds chronologically until the last book, Season of Storms.

But the U.S. translations, which began to be released almost a decade after the full series had been released in Poland, were printed slightly out of order, with the second book, Sword of Destiny, printed only after what is supposed to be the fifth book, Baptism of Fire.

Meanwhile the video games — which tell stories from after the end of the original series, and were not written by Sapkwoski, but are definitely figuring in the TV series — came out in Poland after the original series was completed, but near the beginning of the U.S. translations. In fact, the popularity of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is likely responsible for British publisher Orbit/Gollancz going forward with its translations beyond The Last Wish and Blood of Elves.

Looking for a fun summer reading project We're here to help. In list form, here are the three versions of the reading/playing order: chronological within the series; the original Polish release order; and the U.S. release order.

The Witcher books reading order chronologically

The Witcher stories were first in in a series of short stories collected across various books and anthologies, then onto full-length book adventures themselves. Here they are in chronological order:

'The Road with No Return' (in untranslated collection Something Ends, Something Begins)
“A Grain of Truth” (in The Last Wish)
'The Lesser Evil' (The Last Wish)
'The Edge of the World' (The Last Wish)
'The Last Wish' (The Last Wish)
'A Question of Price' (The Last Wish)
Season of Storms
'The Witcher' (The Last Wish)
'The Voice of Reason' (The Last Wish)
Sword of Destiny
Blood of Elves
Time of Contempt
Baptism of Fire
The Tower of the Swallow
The Lady of the Lake
'Something Ends, Something Begins' (in untranslated Something Ends, Something Begins collection)
The Witcher game
The Witcher 2 game
The Witcher 3 Video Games
Season of Storms Epilogue

The Witcher books release order

Here's whwre it begins to get complicated, the order in which the Witcher stories were originally released in Poland.

'The Witcher', 1986: First Witcher story, published in Fantastyka magazine.
The Witcher, 1990: Includes stories 'The Witcher,' 'A Grain of Truth,' 'The Lesser Evil, 'A Question of Price.'
Sword of Destiny, 1992
The Last Wish, 1993
Blood of Elves, 1994
Time of Contempt, 1995
Baptism of Fire, 1996
The Tower of the Swallow, 1997
The Lady in the Lake, 1999
Something Ends, Something Begins, 2000: Untranslated collection of Sapkowski short stories that includes 'The Road With No Return' and 'Something Ends, Something Begins.'
The Witcher Video Game, 2007
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, 2011
Season of Storms, 2013
Tales from the World of the Witcher, 2013: Untranslated, eight stories by other authors.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, 2015
Claws and Fangs, 2017: Untranslated, 11 stories by contest winners of Nowa Fantastyka magazine on 30th anniversary of publication of the original short story.