With the Merchant perk unlocked, there is a small chance that tomes are sold by blacksmiths. Those random loot tomes may be found in boss chests and safes. The appearance of random tomes is dependent upon your character's overall level (but is not related to your skill in the magic school, unlike tome purchases): The only spell tomes that can not be found randomly are quest-specific spell tomes (those that can not be purchased), tomes added by Dawnguard or Dragonborn, and master-level tomes. Nearly all spell tomes can also be found randomly as loot. Master-level spell tomes can only be acquired once that school's ritual spell quest has been completed. After reaching the required skill level, you must wait for the mage's merchandise to be reset (typically two days in-game), or, save, then attack the merchant and reload, before the new tomes will appear. Also, adept- and expert-level spell tomes only appear in the mage's merchandise when your magic skill is high enough (40 for Adept and 65 for Expert spells).

Higher-level spell tomes are more difficult to find: Each court wizard only stocks the adept-level spells for one school ( Farengar, Madena and Wuunferth for Destruction, Falion and Calcelmo for Conjuration, Sybille Stentor for Illusion and Wylandriah for Alteration) and the expert-level spells can only be purchased from the specialist mages in the College of Winterhold. Novice- and apprentice-level spell tomes can be purchased from the court wizards found in each of Skyrim's cities. Most spell tomes can be purchased from merchants. Most spells (other than starting spells) are learned by reading Spell Tomes. Dozens of spells are available for magically-inclined characters in Skyrim.

Elder scrolls skyrim spells