Title of the work
Country of the First Edition
Country/countries of popularity
Original Language
First Edition Date
First Edition Details
Holly Black and Cassandra Clare, Magisterium: The Copper Gauntlet. New York: Scholastic, 2015, 264 pp.
ISBN
Official Website
magisteriumtrials.com (accessed: October 22, 2020)
Genre
Fantasy fiction
Novels
School story*
Target Audience
Children (middle grade)
Cover
We are still trying to obtain permission for posting the original cover.
Author of the Entry:
Sarah F. Layzell, University of Cambridge, sarahlayzellhardstaff@gmail.
Peer-reviewer of the Entry:
Susan Deacy, University of Roehampton, s.deacy@roehampton.ac.uk
Daniel A. Nkemleke, University of Yaoundé 1, nkemlekedan@yahoo.com
Holly Black by AssistantAtHollyBlack. Retrieved from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (accessed: February 2, 2022).
Holly Black
, b. 1971
(Author)
Holly Black (1971) was born in New Jersey, USA, and published her first book in 2002. She is a bestselling author of more than 30 books and has won several awards and honours, including a Newbery Honor for Doll Bones in 2014. Black is perhaps best known as the author, with Tony DiTerlizzi, of The Spiderwick Chronicles series.
Black lives in Massachusetts, ten minutes away from Cassandra Clare.
Source:
Official website (accessed: October 21, 2020).
Bio prepared by Sarah Hardstaff, University of Cambridge, sflh2@cam.ac.uk
Cassandra Clare by Gage Skidmore. Retrieved from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 (accessed: February 2, 2022).
Cassandra Clare
, b. 1973
(Author)
Cassandra Clare (1973) was born in Iran to American parents and spent much of her childhood travelling. Following a career in magazine journalism, Clare became a full-time author in 2006 and is best known as the author of The Mortal Instruments series, which has been translated into over 34 languages.
Clare lives in Massachusetts, ten minutes away from Holly Black.
Source:
Official website (accessed: October 21, 2020).
Bio prepared by Sarah Hardstaff, University of Cambridge, sflh2@cam.ac.uk
Adaptations
Audiobook:
Holly Black and Cassandra Clare, Magisterium: The Copper Gauntlet, narrated by Paul Boehmer, New York: Penguin Random House, 2015 [audiobook].
Ebook:
Holly Black and Cassandra Clare, Magisterium: The Copper Gauntlet, New York: Scholastic, 2015 [ebook].
Translation
French (France): Le gant de cuivre – Magistérium, Tome 2, Pocket Jeunesse, 2016.
French (Canada): Le gant de cuivre, trans. Marie-Josée Brière, Toronto: Éditions Scholastic, 2015.
Summary
The Magisterium series follows Callum (Call) Hunt and his friends Aaron and Tamara through their time at the Magisterium school for mages. The trio learn how to harness the magic of the four elements – earth, water, fire and air – along with the paired magics of chaos and the soul. [Read more in the entry for the Magisterium series]
The Copper Gauntlet is the second book in the series, and picks up on Callum’s discovery that his soul belongs to the evil Constantine Madden, also known as the "Enemy of Death".
Callum’s discovery plagues his summer holiday: The Copper Gauntlet sees him running away from home, convinced that his father knows about his evil soul and is planning to kill him. He spends the rest of summer with Aaron and Tamara at her house, along with Tamara’s sister Kimiya and her boyfriend Alex Strike. Once back at school, Callum learns of a plot to steal the Alkahest, a magical glove that can be used to strip mages who work with chaos – like Call and Aaron – of their magic.
He suspects his father, and travels with his friends to find him. They are pursued by metal giant Automatones, and flee, following Alistair’s trail to the Enemy of Death’s mausoleum. Callum’s friends watch in horror as he is able to command an army of Chaos-ridden, undead figures created by the Enemy of Death. In the tomb itself, Alistair confronts Master Joseph, who escapes with the Alkahest. Callum finds himself able to use chaos magic after Constantine’s body is destroyed in the fight; he also cuts off Constantine’s head in order that his father can return to the other mages as a hero rather than a criminal. At the novel’s close, a question mark remains over who sent Automatones after the group – an unknown spy.
Analysis
While all the novels in the series draw on overarching themes and touchstones from antiquity, the second and third books – The Copper Gauntlet and The Bronze Key – make additional use of specific references. [Read more in the entry for the Magisterium series]
The Copper Gauntlet outlines the chaos origin story in more detail: “Chaos magic came from the void, came from nothing. It was creation and destruction all rolled into one.” (p. 45). Call also learns that the dagger he inherited from his mother, Semiramis, is named after “an Assyrian queen” (p. 50), a historical figure with mythic status. Antiquity also plays a part in an explanation of the elementals: “They are immensely powerful, like the Greek Titans” (p. 86) ("elementals" are creatures with tremendous power, who embody one of the elements – air, water, earth or fire). An escaped metal elemental who later pursues Call and his friends is named Automatones, reminiscent of the robot-like metal creatures of Greek mythology. Readers do not need to know the background of the classical references to follow the plot, although the books themselves may spark an interest to find out more and may remind readers of classical motifs used in similar series, such as Harry Potter or Percy Jackson.
Further Reading
Leeming, David Adams and Leeming, Margaret Adams, A Dictionary of Creation Myths, Oxford University Press, 1994/2009.
Owen Christopher, Systemic Oppression in Contemporary Children’s Fantastika Literature. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Anglia Ruskin University, arro.anglia.ac.uk, 2019 (accessed: October 22, 2020).
Addenda
Fan website (accessed: October 21, 2020).
