Practical Magic was published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in 1995. Sally and Gillian Owens were raised by their aunts — Aunt Frances and Aunt Jet — in a crumbling house on Magnolia Street in a small Massachusetts town. The aunts are witches. The neighbors know it. The Owens women have been witches for three hundred years, and for three hundred years they have lived under a curse: any man who falls in love with an Owens woman will die young.
Sally, the responsible sister, tries to live a normal life — marries, has daughters, loses her husband (the curse). Gillian, the wild sister, runs away and takes a series of dangerous lovers. When one of Gillian’s men proves genuinely evil, both sisters must confront the magic they have spent their lives denying — and discover that the curse is not their enemy but their inheritance, not a prison but a power.
Hoffman writes magic not as supernatural spectacle but as domestic reality: the aunts’ spells are herbal (lavender for calm, rosemary for memory), their knowledge is practical (how to heal, how to protect, how to let go), and their craft is continuous with ordinary female competence — cooking, gardening, healing — raised to a higher power. The 1998 film adaptation, with Sandra Bullock as Sally and Nicole Kidman as Gillian, became a cultural touchstone.
Collecting Practical Magic
First edition (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1995): Hardcover with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $100–$300
- Very good/very good: $40–$100
- Signed copies: $150–$400