Paul Magrs created the character of Iris Wildthyme for his Phoenix Court series of novels (predating this, an earlier version of the character appeared in his first published work, Patient Iris).
Iris later made her audio debut in Big Finish Productions' Excelis Dawns, where she was portrayed by Katy Manning. Manning would go on to play Iris in all future audio stories, and she would be the basis for illustrations of Iris on the cover of most Iris Wildthyme books.
In August2005, Big Finish released the prose anthology Wildthyme on Top as part of their New Worlds label. This was followed a few months later by Wildthyme at Large, the first Iris Wildthyme audio story, which notably introduced her companion Panda. Further anthologies of short stories and novellas featuring Iris were published by Obverse Books, and Paul Magrs wrote further novels featuring Iris and Panda for Snowbooks Ltd.
One Iris Wildthyme book was published as part of Obverse Sextet, a series of six novellas released in 2019 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Obverse Books.
Iris Wildthyme and Friends was a series of audiobook adaptations of Iris Wildthyme books and other books by Paul Magrs. It was classed as being part of Iris Wildthyme by the Big Finish website.
In November 2013, Paul Magrs announced on Gallifrey Base that he was moving on from Iris Wildthyme, with From Wildthyme with Love intended to be his "little farewell tome".[2] However, Obverse Books continued publishing Iris Wildthyme anthologies, and in 2015 Big Finish rebooted its Iris series with the boxset Wildthyme Reloaded.
