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“Eragon” is a fantasy novel about dragons and magic written by Christopher Paolini and which is the first book in a series called the Inheritance Cycle set in the mythical world of Alagaësia. It tells the story about a young farm boy named Eragon and his dragon named Saphira.

“Eragon” came in third in the best selling children’s hardback book list in 2003 and the second best selling paperback in 2005. It was also listed on the New York Times Best Seller for 121 non-consecutive weeks. Due to the book’s popularity as a best selling book, it was then adapted into a feature film with the same title in 2006. 

“Eragon” is a product of then 15-year old boy Christopher Paolini who was home-schooled by his parents and fond of reading books and writing poetry and stories even at a very young age. Christopher wrote “Eragon” for two years and took another year to prepare everything for publication. The book was self-published and the first copies came out in November 2001. Christopher and his family spent more than a year to promote the book in different libraries, bookstores and schools. Until during the summer of 2002 when author Carl Hiassen came across a copy of “Eragon” through his stepson who was reading it while on vacation in Montana. He asked his publisher to check out the book and to see if Knopf Books for Young Readers which is affiliated with Random House can publish it. Knopf executive editor Michelle Frey subsequently called the Christopher and family to make arrangements for publishing “Eragon.” Finally “Eragon” was published by Knopf in August of 2003.

The popularity of the book grew that Christopher wrote the second book “Eldest” which was published in 2005. The series which was meant to be a trilogy instead became a cycle of four with the third book entitled “Brisingr” coming this September 2008 and a fourth one coming soon. Christopher travelled to different countries to promote his book and even closed a deal for a movie adaptation of “Eragon” with 20th Century Fox.

The movie adaptation of “Eragon” was released in December 2006 and starred Edward Speelers as Eragon, Jeremy Irons, Garrett Hedlund, Sienna Guillory, John Malkovich, Djimon Hounsou and Joss Stone among many other. Rachel Weisz provided the voice for Saphira the dragon. Peter Buchman, the screenwriter for “Jurassic Park III,” wrote the screenplay for “Eragon” while Stefan Fangmeier who was the visual effects director of “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events” which starred Jim Carrey and “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” which features Russell Crowe as the lead star directed Eragon. The film was shot in several locations in Hungary and Slovakia.

For “Eragon” collectibles and other movie replicas from your favorite big screen and small screen flicks, drop by realmcollections.com.