Harry Potter

Harry Potter

File:Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.jpg Cover of the first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
Author	J. K. Rowling
Language	English
Genre	Fantasy literature
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing, et al.
Publication date	26 June 1997
Publication place	United Kingdom

This article is about the Harry Potter series of novels. For the character, see Harry Potter (character).

Harry Potter is a series of fantasy novels by English author J. K. Rowling about a boy with the same name. Since the release of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States) in 1997, the books have gained immense popularity and commercial success worldwide, spawning films, video games and assorted merchandise. The six books published to date have collectively sold more than 325 million copies, and have been translated into more than 63 languages. The seventh and last book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is scheduled to be released on 21 July 2007. Publishers announced a record-breaking 12 million copies for the first print run in the US alone.

The story is mostly set in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and focuses on Harry Potter's fight against the evil wizard Lord Voldemort, who used the Dark Arts to kill Potter's parents.

Due to the success of the novels, Rowling has become the richest writer in literary history. English language versions of the books are published by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom, Scholastic Press in the United States, Allen & Unwin in Australia and Raincoast Books in Canada.

The first four books have been made into very successful motion pictures by Warner Bros.. The fifth, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, began filming in February 2006, and is scheduled for release on 13 July 2007.

Origins and publishing history

In 1990, J. K. Rowling was on a crowded train from Manchester to London when the idea for Harry simply "walked" into her head. Rowling gives an account of the experience on her website saying:

"I had been writing almost continuously since the age of six but I had never been so excited about an idea before. [...] I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, and all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me".

That evening, the author began the pre-writing for her first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, a semi-detailed plan that would include the plots of each of her seven envisioned books, in addition to an enormous amount of biographical and historical information on her characters and universe.

Over the course of the next six years, which included the birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband, and a move to Portugal, Rowling continued writing Philosopher's Stone. Eventually settling in Edinburgh, Rowling wrote much of the Philosopher's Stone in local cafés. Unable to secure a place in a nursery, her daughter would be her constant companion as she worked.

In 1996, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was completed and the manuscript was sent off to prospective agents. The second agent she tried, Christopher Little, offered to represent her and sent the manuscript to Bloomsbury. After eight other publishers had rejected Philosopher's Stone, Bloomsbury offered Rowling a £3,000 advance for the publication of Philosopher's Stone.

Despite Rowling's statement that she did not have any particular age group in mind when she began to write the Harry Potter books, the publishers initially targeted them at children age nine to eleven. On the eve of publishing, Joanne Rowling was asked by her publishers to adopt a more gender-neutral pen name, in order to appeal to the male members of this age group, fearing that they would not be interested in reading a novel they knew to be written by a woman. She elected to use J. K. Rowling (Joanne Kathleen Rowling), omitting her first name and using her grandmother's as her second.

The first Harry Potter book was published in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury in July 1997 and in the United States by Scholastic in September of 1998, but not before Rowling had received a six-figure sum for the American rights – an unprecedented amount for a children's book. Fearing that American readers would either not understand the word "philosopher" or not associate it with a magical theme (as a Philosopher's Stone is alchemy-related), Scholastic insisted that the book be given the title, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the American market. Apart from this exception, the book's original title was kept by every other country in the world.

Over nearly a decade Harry Potter has achieved much success due in part to positive reviews, Rowling's publisher's marketing strategy, but also due to word-of-mouth buzz among average readers, especially young males. The latter is notable because for years, interest in literature among this group had lagged behind other pursuits like video games and the Internet. Rowling's publishers were able to capitalise on this fervour by the rapid, successive releases of the first three books that allowed neither Rowling's audience's excitement nor interest to wane, along with quickly solidifying a loyal readership. The series has also gathered adult fans, leading to two editions of each Harry Potter book being released, identical in text but with one edition's cover artwork aimed at children and the other aimed at adults. Moreover, the series is popular around the world in its many translations. Such was the global clamour to read the book that the English language edition of the series' fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, became the first English-language book ever to top the bookseller list in France. Template:Spoiler

Story

Plot summary

The story opens with the unrestrained celebration of a normally-secretive wizarding world which for many years had been terrorised by Lord Voldemort. The previous night, Voldemort had discovered the refuge of the hidden Potter family, and killed Lily and James Potter. However, when he turned his wand against their infant son, Harry, his killing curse rebounded upon him. His body destroyed, Voldemort became a powerless spirit, seeking refuge in the undisturbed places of the world; Harry, meanwhile, was left with a distinctive lightning bolt scar on his forehead, the only physical sign of Voldemort's curse. Harry's mysterious defeat of Voldemort results in him being dubbed "The Boy Who Lived" by the wizarding world.

The following night, a wizard delivers Harry to what will be his residence for many years afterward. The orphaned Harry is subsequently raised by his cruel, non-magical relatives, the Dursleys who, in attempt to rid him of his magical powers, hide his magical heritage and give him severe punishments after several strange occurrences.

However, as his eleventh birthday approaches, Harry has his first contact with the magical world when he receives letters from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which are taken from him by his Aunt and Uncle before he has a chance to read them. On his eleventh birthday he is informed by Hagrid, the gamekeeper of Hogwarts, that he is in fact a wizard and has been invited to attend Hogwarts. Each book chronicles one year in Harry's life, which is mostly spent at Hogwarts, where he learns to use magic and brew potions. Harry also learns to overcome many magical, social, and emotional obstacles as he struggles through his adolescence, Voldemort's rise to power and the Ministry of Magic's consistent denials of Voldemort's threat for a whole year.

For a detailed synopsis of the novels, see the relevant article for each book.

Universe

Hogwarts school, as it is shown in the films.

The wizarding world in which Harry finds himself is both utterly separate from and yet intimately connected to our own world. While the fantasy world of Narnia functions as an alternate universe and the Lord of the Rings’ Middle-earth as a mythic past, the wizarding world of Harry Potter exists alongside ours with many magical elements that are analogous to things in the non-magical world. Many of its institutions and locations are in towns, such as London, that are recognisable in the primary world. It is a fragmented collection of hidden streets, overlooked and ancient pubs, lonely country manors and secluded castles that remain utterly invisible to the non-magical population (known as "Muggles"). Wizard ability is inborn, rather than learned, although one must attend schools such as Hogwarts in order to master and control it. Since one is either born a wizard or not, most wizards are unfamiliar with the Muggle world, which appears odder to them than their world to us. Despite this, the magical world and its many fantastic elements are depicted very matter-of-factly. One of the principal themes in the novels is the juxtaposition of the magical and the mundane; the characters in the stories live normal lives with "normal" problems, for all their magical surroundings.

Recurrent elements

Blood purity: Wizards in general tend to view Muggles with a combination of condescension and suspicion; however, for a few, this attitude has evolved into bigotry. These characters tend to class those around them based on the number of magical ancestors they had, with "pure-blood" wizards (those with an entirely-magical bloodline) at the top of the hierarchy, "half-blood" wizards in the middle (those with both wizard and Muggle ancestry), and "Muggle-borns" (those with no magical ancestors) at the very bottom. Supporters of blood purity believe pure-bloods should control the wizarding world, and don't consider Muggle-borns real wizards. Some have even gone so far as to murder them or demand that they shouldn't be taught magic. Most blood-purity-believers are pure-blood themselves, though it should be noted that Voldemort, one of the most radical supporters of blood purity ever known, is himself half-blood. Also, very few, if any, true "pure-blood" families actually exist as many have intermarried into the Muggle-born population to stop from dying out. Many of these families have covered this up, however. One example of this is the removal of certain members on the Black family tree.Template:HP5

Owls: Owls are perhaps the most visible aspect of the Wizarding world. They appear at the start of the first novel, presaging what is to come, and play a very visible role in every novel following. They act as the principal form of communication among wizards (somewhat like carrier pigeons) and also as familiars. Harry has a snowy owl named Hedwig.

Quidditch: a spectator sport in the Wizard world, played up in the air on brooms. It is similar in style to polo and football. Harry is a great player at Hogwarts and has helped Gryffindor win a number of games. Harry is the Seeker for his team whose role is to try and catch the Golden Snitch. J.K. Rowling has stated that there will be no Quidditch matches in book 7, unlike all the previous books.

Houses: Like many boarding schools, Hogwarts is divided into four separate houses, named after the four Hogwarts founders, and students are sorted into their respective houses at the start of their first year. They are Gryffindor (which favours courage), Ravenclaw, (which favours cleverness), Hufflepuff, (which favours fairness and loyalty) and Slytherin (which favours ambition). Upon arrival, Harry, along with his friend Ron, and Hermione, who would later be their friend, are sorted into Gryffindor.

Characters

Main article: List of characters in the Harry Potter books

Structure and genre

A large portion of the narrative takes place in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and focuses on Harry Potter's struggles against the dark wizard Lord Voldemort. At the same time, the series explores the themes of friendship, ambition, choice, prejudice, courage, growing up, love, moral responsibility, and the complexities of death and grieving, and are set against the expansive backdrop of a hidden magical world with its own complex history, diverse inhabitants, awe-inspiring creatures, unique culture, and parallel societies.

The novels are very much in the fantasy genre; however, in many respects they are also a Bildungsroman, a novel of education, set in Hogwarts, a British boarding school for wizards, where the curriculum includes the use of magic. In this sense they are "in a direct line of descent from Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days and other Victorian and Edwardian novels of British public school life". They are also, in the words of Stephen King, a "shrewd mystery tale"., and each book is constructed in the manner of a Sherlock Holmes-style mystery adventure; the books leave a number of clues hidden in the narrative, while the characters pursue a number of suspects through various exotic locations, leading to a twist ending that often reverses what the characters had been led to believe. The stories are told from a third person limited point of view; with very few exceptions (such as the opening chapters of Goblet of Fire and Philosopher's Stone and the first two chapters of Half-Blood Prince), the reader learns the secrets of the story when Harry does. The thoughts and plans of other characters, even central ones like Hermione and Ron, are kept hidden until revealed to Harry.

Themes and motifs

Main article: Themes and motifs in Harry Potter

According to Rowling, a major theme in the series is the theme of death. She says:

"My books are largely about death. They open with the death of Harry's parents. There is Voldemort's obsession with conquering death and his quest for immortality at any price, the goal of anyone with magic. I so understand why Voldemort wants to conquer death. We're all frightened of it."

The series pits good against evil, and love against death. Voldemort is continually seeking to avoid death and uses methods such as his attempted theft of the philosopher's stone and splitting his soul using horcruxes to achieve such an aim. This contrasts with Lily Potter's sacrifice of her life to save Harry from Voldemort. In the end it is her love for Harry which saves him from death, something that Voldemort does not appear to understand. The word 'Voldemort' itself has, amongst other meanings, connotations to death - in French and Catalan, Vol means Flight, de means of, and mort means death, so we can understand "Voldemort" as "The flight of the death". In Latin, mort also means death.

Prejudice and discrimination also feature prominently throughout the series. As Harry's education in the magical world continues he learns that there are wizards and witches who hate Muggles and view them as inferior because of their lack of magical ability. Furthermore, the magical world uses a system of designations, Muggle-born, half-blood, and pure-blood, to indicate a wizard's heritage. The more prejudiced within the magical community take these designations a step further, viewing them as a system of ranking to illustrate a wizard's worth, pure-bloods being the preferred wizards, and Muggle-borns (alternatively known by the slur "Mudblood") as the most despised. In addition to prejudices held for fellow humans, there is also discrimination against non-humans and even part-humans (commonly known by the offensive epithet, "half-breeds").

Another significant recurring theme is that of choice. In Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore makes perhaps his most famous statement on this issue: "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." He confronts the issue again in Goblet of Fire, when he tells Cornelius Fudge that what one grows up to be is far more important than what one is born.

As it has been for many characters throughout the series, what Dumbledore termed the "choice between what is right and what is easy" has been a staple of Harry Potter's career at Hogwarts and his choices are among his character's most distinguishing traits from Voldemort's. Both he and Voldemort were orphans raised in difficult environments, in addition to sharing characteristics including, as Dumbledore points out, Voldemort's "own very rare gift, Parseltongue — resourcefulness, determination" and "a certain disregard for rules". However, Harry, unlike Voldemort, has consciously elected to embrace friendship, kindness, and love, where Voldemort knowingly chose to reject them.

While ideas such as love, prejudice, and choice are, as J.K. Rowling states, "deeply entrenched in the whole plot", the writer prefers to let themes "grow organically", rather than sitting down and consciously attempting to impart such ideas to her readers. Friendship and loyalty are perhaps the most "organic" of these, with their main conduit being the relationship between Harry, Ron, and Hermione, which allows these motifs to naturally develop as the three age, their relationship matures, and their accumulated experiences at Hogwarts test their trueness to each other. These ordeals become progressively difficult, keeping in line with the series' increasingly darker tone, and the general nature of adolescence. Along the same lines is the ever-present theme of adolescence, in whose depiction the author has been purposeful in her refusal to ignore her characters' sexualities and leave Harry, as she put it, "stuck in a state of permanent pre-pubescence".

Also recurring throughout Harry Potter are literary motifs, namely Rowling's frequent use of irony, satire, wordplay, and folklore. From the first page onward her writing has displayed an ingenuity in finding the absolutely right name for people, places, things, spells, etc., a strong grasp of irony. From the multilayered sobriquet "Voldemort" through the onomatopoetic "Grawp" (Hagrid's bestial giant half-brother) through the very knowing pun hidden in the killing spell Avada Kedavra, Rowling creates names that usually contain several meanings.

Criticism and praise

Early in its history, Harry Potter received overwhelmingly positive reviews, which helped the series to quickly grow a large readership. Following the 2003 release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix however, the books received strong criticisms from a number of distinguished authors and academics. A. S. Byatt authored a New York Times editorial calling Rowling's universe a “secondary world, made up of intelligently patchworked derivative motifs from all sorts of children's literature [...] written for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons, and the exaggerated (more exciting, not threatening) mirror-worlds of soaps, reality TV and celebrity gossip". Byatt went on to analyse the series' widespread appeal and concluded that this "derivative manipulation of past motifs" is for adult readers driven by a desire to regress to their "own childish desires and hopes" and for younger readers, "the powerful working of the fantasy of escape and empowerment, combined with the fact that the stories are comfortable, funny, just frightening enough". The end result being the levelling "of cultural studies, which are as interested in hype and popularity as they are in literary merit". Likewise, author Fay Weldon took issue with the series saying that it was "not what the poets hoped for, but this is not poetry, it is readable, saleable, everyday, useful prose". Literary critic Harold Bloom also attacked the literary worth of Potter, saying “Rowling's mind is so governed by clichés and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing." Moreover, Bloom disagreed with the common notion that Harry Potter has been good for literature by encouraging children to read, contending that "Harry Potter will not lead our children on to Kipling's Just So Stories or his Jungle Book. It will not lead them to Thurber's Thirteen Clocks or Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows or Lewis Carroll's Alice."

Charles Taylor of Salon.com took issue with Byatt's criticisms in particular. While he conceded that she may have "a valid cultural point — a teeny one — about the impulses that drive us to reassuring pop trash and away from the troubling complexities of art", he rejected her claims that the series is lacking in serious literary merit and that it owes its success merely to the childhood reassurances it offers; Taylor stressed the progressively darker tone of the books, shown by the murder of a classmate and close friend and the resulting psychological wounds and social isolation each causes. Taylor also pointed out that Philosopher's Stone, said to be the most lighthearted of the six published books, disrupts the childhood reassurances that Byatt claims spurs the series' success: the book opens with news of a double murder, for example. Taylor specifically cites "the devastating scene where Harry encounters a mirror that reveals the heart's truest desire and, looking into it, sees himself happy and smiling with the parents he never knew, a vision that lasts only as long as he looks into the glass, and a metaphor for how fleeting our moments of real happiness are", then asks rhetorically if "this is Byatt's idea of reassurance?" Taylor concludes that Rowling's success among children and adults is "because J.K. Rowling is a master of narrative".

Stephen King agreed with Taylor calling the series "a feat of which only a superior imagination is capable", along with declaring "Rowling's punning, one-eyebrow-cocked sense of humour" to be "remarkable". However, he does write that despite the story being "a good one", he is "a little tired of discovering Harry at home with his horrible aunt and uncle", the formulaic beginning of each of the six books published to date. King has also joked that "[Rowling]'s never met an adverb she didn't like!" He does however predict that Harry Potter "will indeed stand time's test and wind up on a shelf where only the best are kept; I think Harry will take his place with Alice, Huck, Frodo, and Dorothy and this is one series not just for the decade, but for the ages."

Yet another vein of criticism comes from some feminist circles, Christine Schoefer prominent among them, who contend that the novels are patriarchal and chauvinistic. According to Schoefer the series presents a world filled with stereotypes and adherence to "the conventional assumption that men do and should run the world." Schoefer cites Harry's courage in dangerous situations in contrast to Hermione's apparent emotional frailty when confronting the same, along with her need for Harry and Ron's approval. Similarly, she contrasts the female Professor McGonagall and her similar frailty under stress compared to the composed and farsighted Dumbledore. In addition to this is the attachment of fraud to females (Professor Trelawney, Professor Umbridge), immaturity (constantly giggling, naïve and catty school girls), and a general lack of daring, bold heroines.

The critic Anthony Holden wrote in The Observer on his experience of judging Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for the 1999 Whitbread Awards. His overall view of the series was very negative - "the Potter saga was essentially patronising, very conservative, highly derivative, dispiritingly nostalgic for a bygone Britain" and adds that "several of the Whitbread judges agreed with me".

Controversy

Main article: Controversy over Harry Potter

Films

Main article: Harry Potter (films)

Awards and honours

J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter series have been the recipients of a host of awards since the initial publication of Philosopher's Stone including four Whitaker Platinum Book Awards (all of which were awarded in 2001), three Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes (1997-1999), two Scottish Arts Council Book Awards (1999 and 2001), and the WHSmith book of the year (2006), among others. In 2000 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was nominated for Best Novel in the Hugo Awards while in 2001 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire won said award. Honours include a commendation for the Carnegie Medal (1997), a shortlisting for the Guardian Children's Award (1998), and numerous listings on the notable books, editors' Choices, and best books lists of the American Library Association, New York Times, Chicago Public Library, and Publishers Weekly.

Commercial success

File:Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire promotion (Hong Kong Times Square).jpg

Costumes from the 2005 film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, used as a promotion at Hong Kong's Times Square.

The popularity of the Harry Potter series has translated into substantial financial success for Rowling, her publishers, and other Harry Potter related license holders. The books have sold over 325 million copies worldwide and have also given rise to the popular film adaptations produced by Warner Bros., all of which have been successful in their own right with the first, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, ranking number four on the list of all-time highest grossing films and the other three Harry Potter films each ranking in the top 20. The films have in turn spawned five video games and have in conjunction with them led to the licensing of over 400 additional Harry Potter products (including an iPod) that have, as of July 2005, made the Harry Potter brand worth an estimated 4 billion dollars and J.K. Rowling a US dollar billionaire, making her, by some reports, richer than Queen Elizabeth II.

The first volume has been translated into Latin and even Ancient Greek, making it the longest work in that language since the novels of Heliodorus of Emesa in the 3rd century AD.

Cultural impact

Since the publishing of Philosopher's Stone a number of societal trends have been attributed to the series. In 2005, doctors at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford reported that their research of the weekends of Saturday 21 June2003 and Saturday 16 July 2005 (the dates of the two most recent book releases of the series) found that only 36 children needed emergency medical assistance for injuries sustained in accidents, as opposed to other weekends' average of 67. Also, anecdotal evidence suggesting an increase in literacy among children due to Harry Potter was seemingly confirmed in 2006 when the Kids and Family Reading Report (in conjunction with Scholastic) released a survey finding that 51% of Harry Potter readers ages 5-17 said that while they did not read books for fun before they started reading Harry Potter, they now did. The study further reported that according to 65% of children and 76% of parents, they or their children's performance in school improved since they started reading the series.

Crowds wait outside a Borders store in Delaware for the midnight release of the book

Notable also is the development of a massive following of fans. So eager were these fans for the latest series release that book stores around the world began holding events to coincide with the midnight release of the books, beginning with the 2000 publication of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The events, commonly featuring mock sorting, games, face painting, and other live entertainment have achieved popularity with Potter fans and have been incredibly successful at attracting fans and selling books with nearly nine million of the 10.8 million initial print copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sold in the first 24 hours. Among this large base of fans are a minority of "super-fans", similar to the trekkies of the Star Trek fandom. Besides meeting online through blogs, podcasts, and fansites, Harry Potter super-fans can also meet at Harry Potter symposiums. These events draw people from around the world to attend lectures, discussions and a host of other Potter themed activities. See Harry Potter Fandom for further details.

The Harry Potter books have inspired the "Wizard Rock" movement, where a number of bands were formed whose names, image and song lyrics relate to the Harry Potter world. Examples include, Harry and the Potters and The Cruciatus Curse.

Harry Potter has also brought changes in the publishing world, one of the most noted being the reformation of the New York Times Best Seller list. The change came immediately preceding the release of Goblet of Fire in 2000 when publishers complained of the number of slots on the list being held by Harry Potter and other children's books. The Times subsequently created a separate children's list for Harry Potter and other children's literature.

Impact on Popular Culture

• There are several references to Harry Potter in the animated sitcom The Simpsons, most notably an outright parody in a Treehouse of Horror episode. In one regular episode, a scene cuts to where Ned Flanders is finishing reading a book aloud for his children. Ned reads: "And Harry Potter and all his wizard friends went straight to Hell for practicing witchcraft!" to which his children shout, "Yay!". This is a reference to the controversy among Christians that Harry Potter is an evil series. J.K. Rowling also voices herself in a cameo appearance in season fifteen episode The Regina Monologues.

• State Line Tack and other sellers of equine goods and novelties have sold t-shirts showing a horse riding a broomstick and wearing a cape, with the words "Hairy Trotter" below the picture.

Future

There are currently three more Harry Potter films yet to be released. The fifth film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is due to be released in cinemas on July 13, 2007, and the sixth film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is due to be released in November 2008.

In December 2005, Rowling declared on her web site that "2006 will be the year when I write the final book in the Harry Potter series." Updates have since followed in her online diary chronicling the progress of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with the release date of July 21 2007.

The book itself had been finished on January 11 2007 in the Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh, where she scrawled a message on the back of a bust of Hermes. It read: “JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (652) on 11th Jan 2007.”

Rowling herself has stated that the last chapter of the seventh book was completed some time ago, before writing the third book. According to her, the last word in the book is "scar".

In June 2006, Rowling, on an appearance on the British talk show Richard & Judy, announced that the chapter had been modified as one character "got a reprieve" and two others who previously survived the story had in fact been killed. She also said she could see the logic in killing off Harry in order to stop other writers from writing books about Harry's life after Hogwarts.

Regarding the existence of Harry Potter novels beyond the seventh, Rowling has said that she might write an eighth book some day, but it will not continue the life of Harry and his friends. If she does, she intends it to be a sort of encyclopedia of the wizarding world, containing concepts and snippets of information that were not relevant enough to the novels' plots to be included in them. She also stated that she would like to write adult mystery novels after she is done with the last Harry Potter book. She has also said that she will not write any sort of prequel to the novels, since by the time the series ends all the necessary back story will have been revealed.

Series

1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (June 26 1997) (titled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States)
2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (July 2 1998)
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (July 8 1999)
4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (July 8 2000)
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (June 21 2003)
6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (July 16, 2005)
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Scheduled for July 21, 2007)
8. Harry Potter and the Balance of the Earth

Supplementary books

• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2001)
• Quidditch Through the Ages (2001)

See also

• Harry Potter fandom
• Wizarding world
• Dates in Harry Potter
• Works analogous to Harry Potter
• Harry Potter parodies
• Harry Potter in translation
• List of Harry Potter films cast members
• Harry Potter fan fiction
• Magical objects in Harry Potter

Further reading

• Rowling, J. K. (1997). Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Bloomsbury. ISBN 0747532699.
• Rowling, J. K. (1998). Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Bloomsbury. ISBN 0747538492.
• Rowling, J. K. (1999). Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Bloomsbury. ISBN 0747542155.
• Rowling, J. K. (2000). Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Bloomsbury. ISBN 074754624X.
• Rowling, J. K. (2003). Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Bloomsbury. ISBN 0747551006.
• Rowling, J. K. (2005). Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Bloomsbury. ISBN 0747581088.

External links

Official sites

• J.K. Rowling's personal website
• Official Harry Potter movies website (Warner Bros.)
• Harry Potter on Bloomsbury.com (International publisher)
• Harry Potter on Scholastic.com (US publisher)
• Harry Potter on Raincoast.com (Canadian publisher)

Other resources

• Harry Potter Movies
• Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter
• The Harry Potter Wiki
• Summaries of all Harry Potter books
• The Leaky Cauldron