Harry Potter influences and analogues
Many critics have noted that Jill Murphy's "The Worst Witch" series (first published in 1974 by Allison & Busby), is set in a school for girls, "Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches", reminiscent of Hogwarts. The story concerns an awkward pupil at a boarding-school for witches, who faces a scheming rival student. Her professors include a kindly and elderly headmistress and a bullying, raven-haired potions teacher. Murphy has commented on her frustration at constant comparisons between her work and "Harry Potter": "It's irritating … everyone asks the same question and I even get children writing to ask me whether I mind about the Hogwarts school of witchcraft and pointing out similarities. Even worse are reviewers who come across my books, or see the TV series, and, without taking the trouble to find out that it's now over quarter of a century since I wrote my first book, make pointed remarks about 'clever timing' – or say things like 'the Worst Witch stories are not a million miles from J K Rowling's books'. The implications are really quite insulting!"
Ilse Witch
Ilse Witch is a fantasy novel by American writer Terry Brooks, the first book in The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara fantasy trilogy. First published in 2000, it was the first novel in which Brooks described the use of futuristic technology, including airships as well as robots and lasers from the Old World. A conversation between the Druid Walker Boh and the Shade of Allanon that was edited from "Ilse Witch" was published as part of "Unfettered", a collection of fantasy short stories