Although tales of wonder and the fantastic are integral to all world literatures, only recently has the fantasy genre had a commercial resurgence in North America  During the last 20 years, sales of fantasy-fiction books written for adults have gone from 1 to 10 percent of total adult-fiction sales  At the same time, the number of favorable reviews of fantasy books has increased markedly
Some booksellers say that the increased sales of fantasy books written for adults can be traced to the increased favorable attention given the genre by book reviewers
Although the increase in the percentage of fantasy books sold has been substantial, publishers estimate that sales could increase even further.