Cover of the first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (British version)
Harry Potter is an immensely popular series of fantasy novels by British writer J. K. Rowling. It depicts a world of witches and wizards, the protagonist being the eponymous young wizard, Harry Potter. 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 often been criticised for their content, as well as praised for their literary merit. Despite this, the series has succeeded in gaining immense popularity and commercial success worldwide, spawning films, video games, and a wealth of other items. The books have sold more than 300 million copiesContemporaryWriters.com. "J. K. Rowling". Accessed 23 March2006. and been translated into 47 languages, more than any other book except the Bible.
Most of the narrative takes place in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, focusing on Harry Potter's journey toward manhood over the course of his education, relationships, and adventures. At the same time, the books explore the themes of friendship, ambition, choice, prejudice, courage, love, and the perplexities of death, set against the expansive backdrop of a magical world with its own complex history, diverse inhabitants, unique culture, and parallel society.
As of 2006, six of the seven planned books have been published, while the publishing date of the seventh remains uncertain. The latest, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was issued in its English language version on 16 July2005. The first four books have been made into very successful films, and the fifth began filming in February 2006. English language versions of the books are published by Bloomsbury, Scholastic Press, and Raincoast Books.
In 1990, J.K. Rowling was on a crowded train from Manchester to London when the idea for Harry simply "fell" into her head. She gives an account of the experience on her website:
"I had been writing almost continuously since the age of six but I had never been so excited about an idea before. To my immense frustration, I didn't have a functioning pen with me, and I was too shy to ask anybody if I could borrow one. I think, now, that this was probably a good thing, because 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. I think that perhaps if I had had to slow down the ideas so that I could capture them on paper I might have stifled some of them (although sometimes I do wonder, idly, how much of what I imagined on that journey I had forgotten by the time I actually got my hands on a pen)."
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 historical and biographical information on her characters and universe. Eventually Rowling relocated to Portugal, where in 1992 she married her first husband, and in 1993 had her first child, Jessica, all the while continuing her writing of Stone. When the marriage dissolved, Rowling returned to Britain with her daughter and settled in Edinburgh to be near her sister, famously continuing her writing of Philosopher's Stone in local coffee shops. Bringing in only £90 a week (of which £70 was from income support) and unable to secure a place for her daughter in a nursery, the sleeping infant Jessica would be a constant companion to her mother as Rowling laboured to finish the book that she had at this point begun to fear would never be completed.
In 1996, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was completed and the manuscript was sent off to an agent.
"The agent sent the manuscript back to my despair without the folder, which had cost me £4.00 [$7.00], saying writing 80,000 words made it much too long for a children's book."
The second agent she tried, Christopher Little, wrote back immediately to say he liked it and wanted to take her on. He sent the manuscript to Bloomsbury.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 School, a British boarding school for wizards, where the curriculum includes the use of magic. The books 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 corners of the text, while the characters pursue a number of suspects though various exotic locations, leading to a twist ending that often reverses what the characters had been led to believe.
The main character, a boy named Harry Potter, is an orphan who lives with his cruel relatives, the Dursleys. He is initially kept in ignorance of his magical heritage â€" the Dursleys despise his "unnaturalness". However, as his eleventh birthday approaches, Harry begins to be aware of his differences, and on his eleventh birthday, has his first contact with the magical world when he is notified by Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry that he is in fact a wizard and has been chosen to attend.
The wizarding world in which Harry finds himself is both utterly separate from and yet innately connected to our own world. Unlike the fantasy worlds of Narnia and Middle-earth, the world of Harry Potter exists alongside ours, and many of its institutions and locations are in towns, such as London, that are recognisable to anyone. It is a fragmented collection of hidden streets, overlooked and ancient pubs, lonely country manors and secluded castles that remains 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 would to us. Despite this, the magical world is depicted very matter-of-factly. One of the principal themes in the novels is this juxtaposition of the magical and the mundane; the characters in the stories live utterly normal lives with utterly normal problems, despite their magical surroundings.
The first novel opens on the morning of November 1, 1981, a day filled with both the peculiar and the incomprehensible: shooting stars, an inordinate number of owls, and oddly dressed strangers joyously accosting bewildered muggles on the street. The source of these strange events is the unrestrained celebration of a normally-secretive Wizarding World which had for years been terrorised by Lord Voldemort in his decades-long bid for power. The previous night, Lord Voldemort, who had for months sought the hidden Potter family, discovered their refuge and killed Lily and James Potter. However, when he turned his wand against their infant son, Harry, his curse rebounded upon him. He was ripped from his body and forced into hiding, leaving Harry with a distinctive lightning bolt scar on his forehead, the only physical sign of Voldemort's attack. Harry's mysterious defeat of Voldemort that Halloween night was met with a mix of awe and joy by the magical community, resulting in Harry being dubbed "The Boy Who Lived". The second chapter begins ten years later, in 1991, when Harry learns of his magical heritage and the story proper begins.
The subsequent stories follow a very strict formula: set one year apart, they begin near the end of summer, as Harry, interred with the Dursleys in the Muggle world, awaits September and his return to Hogwarts. He then spends some time in a particular magical location (Diagon Alley, The Burrow, Grimmauld Place) before boarding the Hogwarts Express at Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station, which takes him to Hogwarts. After he arrives at school, the bulk of each novel deals with him overcoming everyday school issues, such as essays, awkward crushes, and unsympathetic teachers. Also during this period, Harry wrestles with a mystery which climaxes in the days near the end of the school year, which often involves an attempt by Lord Voldemort to regain power.
For a detailed synopsis of the novels, see the relevant article for each book
Characters in Harry Potter
*Harry Potter: The only child of James and Lily Potter, with whom he shares many distinct characteristics, most notably James' unruly black hair and Lily's green eyes. He was born on July 311980. He achieved fame at the age of one when Lord Voldemort, the most feared wizard ever, attacked his home, murdering his parents but failing to kill him, though leaving him with his instantly recognisable scar. In the attempt, Voldemort was hit and ripped from his body by his own backfiring Killing Curse. At Hogwarts, Harry has shown himself to be a gifted wizard, excelling both at Defence Against the Dark Arts and Quidditch, along with being recognised as a capable leader within his house, Gryffindor, and the school in general. Despite his best attempts, he has been unable to downplay his fame and his inability to do so has at times been a source of great frustration to him, making him the target of unwanted media attention, fainting, rumours, gawking (chiefly at his scar), and the ire of professors and classmates alike. However, despite all external pressures, he remains overall courageous, noble, and high minded, though at times these qualities have been shown to negatively manifest themselves in what Hermione Granger termed his "saving-people thing". He is best friends with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, and his enemies are the scary sallow-faced potions teacher, Severus Snape, Lord Voldemort, and Draco Malfoy. * The Dursleys: These are Harry's vile Muggle (non-magical) relatives, and the only remaining relatives that he has. Throughout Harry's entire life they had mistreated him, but despite this all, Harry returns to their home every summer, each holiday a torment, for a reason unknown to him until book 5. *Ron Weasley: Harry Potter's best friend and sixth of the seven children of the widely respected (though somewhat poor) Weasley family. The Weasley family are one the best examples of [pure] blood traitors. He befriended Harry almost immediately upon meeting him during their first journey on the Hogwarts Express. However, a serious rift did once develop between them, due in part to his frustration at being forced to live in Harry's shadow â€" no doubt magnified by his position as youngest brother in his large family. Despite this, he and Harry have remained close through the years, with him being a constant companion through Harry's trials and adventures. Ron is a foil character to Harry, showing the advantages of having a close family there for support. *Hermione Granger: The other best friend of Harry Potter and Ron Weasley who is generally held to be the best student of Harry's year. Her high intelligence and reason-based way of tackling challenges have often been a great asset to Harry and Ron throughout their Hogwarts careers, though her sometimes bossy and interfering manner has at times been a source of contention between them. Her status as a Muggle-born, along with her intelligence and assertive manner, have on occasion made her a prime target for disapproving prejudiced classmates, e.g. Draco Malfoy. *Lord Voldemort: The chief antagonist of the series, and an evil wizard bent on securing unmatched power and achieving immortality through the practice of Dark Magic. After years of slaughter in pursuit of his goals he was stopped when he attempted to kill Harry Potter when the boy was just an infant and failed, being ripped from his body and forced to flee into hiding. So feared was he at the height of his prodigious powers that even following his downfall most wizards feared to speak his name, referring to him instead as "You-Know-Who", "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named", or "The Dark Lord", the last of which is uttered primarily by his followers, the Death Eaters. His actual name was Tom Marvolo Riddle, and he was also once a student at Hogwarts. "I am Lord Voldemort" is an anagram of Tom Marvolo Riddle. *Professor Albus Dumbledore: Harry's most trusted advisor and headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is perhaps one of the most respected men in the Wizarding world, holding high ranking positions in both national and international magical government, along with being an accomplished alchemist and master of an assortment of magical disciplines. He is also said to be the only known sorcerer whom Lord Voldemort ever feared, and notorious as one of the few who does not fear Voldemort, showing slight disdain if a person is afraid to utter his name. Dumbledore always sees and trusts the best of people. He is killed by Severus Snape near the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by means of the Killing Curse, although there is some debate within the fan community as to whether or not Dumbledore really died, or whether he ordered Severus Snape to kill him (See similarity). There is another debate concerning whether Snape really used the Killing Curse, or simply acted like doing that while using a non-verbal spell to blast Dumbledore off (as the Killing Curse does not normally blast its victim off) [1]. *Professor Severus Snape: A gifted wizard, Hogwarts staff member, and since his youth, a bitter enemy of James Potter and Sirius Black. As Hogwarts Potions master he sought to exact his revenge on the deceased James Potter by verbally abusing his son Harry. A former Death Eater later taken on as a professor by Dumbledore, Snape's loyalty is constantly under question though Dumbledore maintains that he unequivocally trusts him for reasons that he has declined to reveal. The loyalty of Snape remains unknown and a hot debate for fans as of 2006. *Rubeus Hagrid: Son of a wizard and a giantess, he is both surprisingly gentle and nurturing. One of Harry Potter's biggest supporters and most steadfast friends, he is also the Hogwarts groundskeeper and teacher of Care of Magical Creatures and it was he who reintroduced Harry to the magical world. Hagrid also went to school at Hogwarts, but was expelled in his third year for a crime he did not commit and is thus unable to legally perform magic. Hagrid's lessons have involved formidable magical creatures which some officials of the Ministry of Magic (notably Dolores Umbridge) consider inappropriate for the instruction of young students. *Sirius Black: Best friend to James Potter and former rebellious youth who fled his pure-blood supremacist parents' home in his youth. Framed- (perhaps inadvertently)- for assisting Voldemort in the murder of James and Lily Potter and subsequently sent to the dreaded wizard prison Azkaban, though he later escaped. He is also Harry Potter's Godfather. In The Order of the Phoenix, he is hit by a curse cast by his cousinBellatrix Lestrange, causing him to fall behind the veil in the Department of Mysteries to an apparent death. His death is very traumatising to Harry. *Ginny Weasley: is the only daughter of the Weasley family. She is a very talented witch, especially noted for her skill with the Bat-Bogey Hex. Ginny is the first female born into the Weasley line in 'several generations, and that as a seventh child 'she is a gifted witch.' She is widely considered very attractive. Potions professor Horace Slughorn sees great potential in the youngest Weasley and respects her formidable magical abilities. She had a long standing crush on Harry although a relationship with Harry starts only in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. *Draco Malfoy: A pure-blood supremacist and member of Slytherin house known for his white-blonde hair and grey eyes, in addition to his sharp tongue that often targets Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger. As Harry and Ron became fast friends, Harry and Draco quickly became enemies, with the two facing off in various confrontations, including Quidditch, on numerous occasions throughout the series. He and his two cronies, Crabbe and Goyle, serve as the antithesis to the main trio.
Themes and motifs
One of the most enduring themes throughout the series is that of love, portrayed as a powerful form of magic in and of itself. It is Dumbledore's belief that it was this power that allowed Harry to resist Voldemort's temptations of power during their second encounter, prevented Voldemort from being able to possess him during their fifth encounter, and will eventually lead to Voldemort's downfall.
In contrast, a major theme of the series is that of death. "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," said Rowling. "There would be so much to tell her..."The Daily Telegraph. Accessed 29 June2006. In fact, Voldemort's name means "flight of death" in Latin and French, and "steal death" in French and Catalan. The series pits good against evil, and love against death. Voldemort's pursuit to avoid death, seen by his drinking unicorn blood for a half-life and splitting his soul through the use of horcruxes, contrasts with Lily's sacrificial love for Harry and the extraordinary magic her act leaves to him through his scar that Voldemort can never understand or appreciate, as well as Dumbledore's constant love of Harry.
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 utilises 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 sorcerers, and Muggle-borns (alternatively known by the slur "Mudblood") as the most despised. In addition to prejudices held for fellow humans, there is also a common shunning of non-humans and even part-humans (commonly known by the offensive epithet, "half-breeds").
Another significant recurring themes 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 â€" 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 adolesence, 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.
Series' mythological influences as seen on the cover of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Rowling has stated that while there are a number of writers she "admires", it is more accurate to say that they represent an "untouchable ideal" to her, rather than an influence, as she doesn't "analyse" her "own writing in that way".
The first four films were scripted by Steve Kloves with the direct assistance of Rowling, though she allowed Kloves what he described as "tremendous elbow room". Thus the plot and tone of each film and its corresponding book are virtually the same except with minor changes (Hermione's dress robe colour in Goblet of Fire) and omissions of a non-critical nature (the telling of how Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban in Prisoner of Azkaban) for purposes of cinematic style and time constraints. Despite these changes, Rowling has characterised Kloves and his adaptations as being "faithful to the books".
The fifth Harry Potter film, Order of the Phoenix is scheduled by Warner Bros. for release on July 13, 2007, and the sixth, Half-Blood Prince is scheduled for November 18, 2008.
Crowds wait outside a Borders store in Delaware for the midnight release of the book
Events
Following the Harry Potter media blitz or "Pottermania" of 1999â€"2000, the Harry Potter series developed a massive following of fans, so eager 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.
Harry Potter costumes promoting the film in Hong Kong.
The tremendous 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 300 million copies worldwide and have also given rise to 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 three on the list of all time highest-grossing films and the other three each ranking in the top 25.
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 June, 2003 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. While anecdotal evidence such as this suggests an increase in literacy among children, whether or not such growth is varied across genres and works or is even sustained has yet to be definitively proven.
Harry Potter has also wrought 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, leading the Times to create a separate children's list for Harry Potter and other children's literature in order to free up more of the coveted 15 slots on the list.
Harry Potter's popularity has also made it the subject of frequent reference and parody throughout the world. These include the Barry Trotter series, the Russian Tanya Grotter series, features in Mad magazine, and a number of sketches on the comedy show Saturday Night Live, among a multitude of others.In the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada, Andrea Sachs must find a copy of the unpublished manuscript for the next Harry Potter book for her boss, Miranda Priestly.
There are currently three more Harry Potter films yet to be released. On 5 April, 2006 Warner Brothers announced that the fifth film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, will be released in cinemas on 13 July, 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".
Regarding the existence of Harry Potter novels beyond the seventh, Rowling has said that she might write an eighth book some day. 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.
