The Last Graduate

Novik is known for her retellings of classic fairytales and folktales, and the Scholomance series is no exception. In a 2020 interview concerning her series, Novik notes the inspiration for the Scholomance, stating, “[T]here’s an old folk legend of the Scholomance, a hidden school of dark magic where wizards spent years studying in the dark, without teachers, and when they left, the last graduate’s soul was taken in payment for their education” (Diehl, Amanda. “Naomi Novik: The Darkest of Academias.” Book Page, 2020).

The folktale that Novik references is a Romanian one. Nineteenth-century folklorist Emily Gerard came across references to the story of the Scholomance in her studies of Transylvanian folklore. In her account, the school is one in which the devil teaches 10 scholars “all the secrets of nature, the language of animals, and all imaginable magic spells and charms […] and when the course of learning has expired and nine of them are released to return to their homes, the tenth scholar is detained by the devil as payment” (Gerard, Emily. Transylvanian Superstitions in The Nineteenth Century, 1885). One other notable mention of the Scholomance occurs in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), in which the Scholomance is the school where the Draculas gain esoteric knowledge through their studies with the devil; in this version, the 10th scholar is also the devil’s due.