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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

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This article is about the book. For its adaptations, see Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film) and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (video game).
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Harry Potter books
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Book Cover.jpg
Author
J. K. Rowling
Illustrators
Thomas Taylor (UK)
Mary GrandPré (US)
Genre
Fantasy
Publishers
Bloomsbury (UK)
Arthur A. Levine/
Scholastic (US)
Raincoast (Canada)
Released
26 June 1997 (UK)
 1 September 1998 (US)
Book no.
One
Sales
unknown
Chapters
17
Pages
223 (UK)
 309 (US)
ISBN
0-7475-3269-9
Followed by
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is the first novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling and featuring Harry Potter, a young wizard. It describes how Harry discovers he is a wizard, makes close friends and a few enemies at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and with the help of his friends thwarts an attempted comeback by the evil wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents when Harry was one year old.
The book, which is J.K. Rowling's debut novel, was published on 26 June 1997 by Bloomsbury in London. In 1998 Scholastic Corporation published an edition for the United States market under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The novel won most of the British book awards that were judged by children, and other awards in the US. The book reached the top of the New York Times list of best-selling fiction in August 1999, and stayed near the top of that list for much of 1999 and 2000. It has been translated into several other languages and has been made into a feature-length film of the same name.
Most reviews were very favourable, commenting on Rowling's imagination, humour, simple, direct style and clever plot construction, although a few complained that the final chapters seemed rushed. The writing has been compared to that of Jane Austen, one of Rowling's favourite authors, or Roald Dahl, whose works dominated children's stories before the appearance of Harry Potter, and of the Ancient Greek story-teller Homer. While some commentators thought the book looked backwards to Victorian and Edwardian boarding school stories, others thought it placed the genre firmly in the modern world by featuring contemporary ethical and social issues.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, along with the rest of the Harry Potter series, has been attacked by several religious groups and banned in some countries because of accusations that the novels promote witchcraft, but some Christian commentators have written that the book exemplifies important Christian viewpoints, including the power of self-sacrifice and the ways in which people's decisions shape their personalities. Educators regard Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and its sequels as an important aid in improving literacy because of the books' popularity. The series has also been used as a source of object lessons in educational techniques, sociological analysis and marketing.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Synopsis 1.1 Plot
1.2 Main characters
2 Development, publication and reception 2.1 Development
2.2 Publication and reception in the United Kingdom
2.3 U.S. publication and reception
2.4 Translations
3 Style and themes
4 Legacy 4.1 Sequels
4.2 Film version
4.3 Video games
4.4 Uses in education and business
5 Footnotes 5.1 Notes
5.2 References
6 External links
Synopsis[edit]
Plot[edit]



 As the main title suggests, the plot centers on a legendary alchemist substance which is believed by some to give immortality.
Before the start of the novel, Voldemort, considered the most evil and powerful dark wizard in history, kills Harry's parents but mysteriously vanishes after trying to kill the infant Harry. While the wizarding world celebrates Voldemort's downfall, Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall and Rubeus Hagrid place the one year-old orphan in the care of his neglectful and abusive Muggle (non-wizard) uncle and aunt: Vernon and Petunia Dursley. Harry grows up with his aunt and uncle and their son, Dudley, a spoiled and selfish boy.
For ten years, Harry is tormented by the Dursleys. Harry is treated more as an unpleasant servant than a member of the family. Shortly before his eleventh birthday, a series of letters addressed to Harry arrive, but Vernon destroys them before Harry can read them, leading only to an influx of more letters. To get away from the letters, Vernon takes the family to a small island. As they are settling in, Hagrid (Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry) bursts through the door to deliver Harry's letter and tell him what the Dursleys have kept from him: Harry is a wizard and has been accepted at Hogwarts. Hagrid takes Harry to Diagon Alley, a magically concealed shopping precinct in London, where Harry is bewildered to discover how famous he is among wizards as "the boy who lived." He also finds that he is quite wealthy, since a bequest from his parents has remained on deposit at Gringotts Wizarding Bank. Guided by Hagrid, he buys the equipment he needs for his first year at Hogwarts.
One of the many materials Harry needs to purchase for his upcoming year at Hogwarts is a wand. At the wand shop, he finds that the wand that suits him best is the twin of Voldemort's; both wands contain feathers from the same phoenix.[1] Harry also leaves with a new pet and birthday gift from Hagrid, an owl named Hedwig who is to become one of his most loyal companions and friends. A month later, Harry leaves the Dursleys' home to catch the Hogwarts Express from King's Cross railway station. There he meets the Weasley family, who show him how to pass through the magical wall to Platform 9¾, where the train that will take them to Hogwarts is waiting. While on the train, Harry makes friends with Ron Weasley, who tells him that someone tried to rob a vault at Gringotts. They discuss the upcoming school year, which Harry is both anxious and excited for. During the ride, they meet Hermione Granger. She is later to become one of their best friends. Harry also makes an enemy on this trip. Another new pupil, Draco Malfoy, accompanied by his sidekicks Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, offers to advise Harry, but Harry dislikes Draco's arrogance and prejudice and rejects his offer of "friendship".
Before the term's first dinner in the school's Great Hall, the new pupils are allocated to houses by the Sorting Hat. While Harry is being sorted, the Hat wonders whether he should be in Slytherin, but when Harry objects, the Hat sends him to Gryffindor. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger are also sorted into Gryffindor. Draco Malfoy is sorted into Slytherin house, Gryffindor's rival house. During the meal, Harry catches Professor Snape's eye and feels a pain in the scar Voldemort left on his forehead.
After a terrible first Potions lesson with Snape, Harry and Ron visit Hagrid, who lives in a cabin on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. There they learn that the attempted robbery at Gringotts happened the day Harry withdrew money from his vault. Harry remembers that Hagrid had removed a small package from the vault that had been broken into.
During the new pupils' first broom-flying lesson, fellow Gryffindor Neville Longbottom breaks his wrist and is rushed to the infirmary by their instructor. Draco takes advantage to throw the forgetful Neville's fragile Remembrall, which Neville dropped because of his accident, high in the air. Harry gives chase on his broomstick, catching the Remembrall inches from the ground. Unbeknownst to Harry, Professor McGonagall, head of Gryffindor house, has witnessed his performance on his broom. Professor McGonagall dashes out and appoints him as the new Seeker for the Gryffindor Quidditch team.[a]
When Draco tricks Ron and Harry, who are accompanied by Neville and Hermione Granger, into a midnight excursion, they accidentally enter a forbidden corridor and find a huge three-headed dog. The group hastily retreats, and Hermione notices that the dog is standing over a trap-door. Harry concludes that the monster is guarding the package Hagrid retrieved from Gringotts.
After Ron criticises Hermione's ostentatious proficiency in Charms, she hides in the girls' toilet, crying. At the Halloween Feast, Professor Quirrell reports that a troll has entered the dungeons. While everyone returns to their dormitories, Harry and Ron rush to warn Hermione, who was not at the feast to hear the announcement. The troll corners Hermione in the toilet but Harry and Ron clumsily save her. Afterwards, Hermione takes the blame for the battle and becomes a firm friend of the two boys.
The evening before Harry's first Quidditch match, he sees Snape receiving medical attention from Filch for a bite on his leg caused by the three-headed dog. During the game, Harry's broomstick goes out of control, endangering his life, and Hermione notices that Snape is staring at Harry and muttering.Concluding that Professor Snape is responsible for Harry's out of control broom, she dashes over to the Professors' stand, knocking over Professor Quirrell in her haste, and sets fire to Snape's robe. Harry regains control of his broomstick and catches the Golden Snitch, winning the game for Gryffindor. Hagrid refuses to believe that Snape was responsible for Harry's danger, but lets slip that he bought the three-headed dog and that the monster is guarding a secret that belongs to Professor Dumbledore and someone called Nicolas Flamel.
When Christmas break arrives, Harry and the Weasleys remain at Hogwarts, while Hermione goes back home. One of Harry's presents, from an anonymous donor, is an Invisibility Cloak that belonged to his father. Harry uses the Cloak to search the library's Restricted Section for information about the mysterious Flamel, and he happens to find a room containing the Mirror of Erised, which shows him his parents and several of their ancestors. Harry becomes addicted to the Mirror's visions, choosing to spend time with his family than with his friends at Hogwarts, until he is rescued by Professor Dumbledore, who explains that it only shows the viewer what he most desperately longs for.
When the rest of the pupils return for the next term, Draco plays a prank on Neville, and Harry consoles Neville with a sweet. The collectible card wrapped with the sweet identifies Flamel as an alchemist. Hermione soon finds that he is a 665-year-old man who possesses the only known Philosopher's Stone, from which an elixir of life can be extracted. A few days later, Harry notices Snape sneaking towards the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest. There he half-hears a furtive conversation about the Philosopher's Stone between Snape and Quirrell. Harry concludes that Snape is trying to steal the Stone and Quirrell has helped prepare a series of defences for it, which was an almost fatal mistake.
The three friends discover that Hagrid is raising a baby dragon, which is against wizard law, and arrange to smuggle it out of the country around midnight. Draco, hoping to get them into trouble, tells Professor McGonagall. Although the dragon is safely away, they are caught outside of their dormitory. Harry, Hermione, Draco, and Neville (who, trying to stop Harry and Hermione after hearing what Draco had been saying, is caught by McGonagall as well) are punished by helping Hagrid to rescue a badly injured unicorn in the Forbidden Forest. They split into two parties, and Harry and Draco find the unicorn already dead, surrounded by its blood. A hooded figure crawls to the corpse and drinks the blood, then moves towards Harry, who is rescued by a centaur, Firenze, who offers to give him a ride back to the school. The centaur tells Harry that drinking a unicorn's blood will save the life of a mortally injured person, but at the price of having a cursed life from that moment on. Firenze suggests Voldemort drank the unicorn's blood to gain enough strength to make the elixir of life from the Philosopher's Stone, and regain full health by drinking that.
A few weeks later, Harry learns from Hagrid that the dragon egg was given to him by a hooded stranger who had asked him how to get past the three-headed dog, which Hagrid had admitted was easy – music sends it to sleep. Realizing that one of the Philosopher's Stone's defenses is no longer secure, Harry goes to inform Professor Dumbledore, only to find that the headmaster has just left for a meeting in London. Harry concludes that Snape faked the message that called Dumbledore away and will try to steal the Stone that night. Harry decides that they must protect the stone themselves in Dumbledore's absence. Covered by the Invisibility Cloak, Harry and his two friends go to the three-headed dog's chamber, where Harry sends the beast to sleep by playing a flute. After lifting the trap-door, they encounter a series of obstacles, each of which requires special skills possessed by one of the three, and one of which requires Ron to sacrifice himself in a life-size game of wizard's chess.
In the final room Harry, now alone, finds Quirrell rather than Snape. Quirrell admits that he let in the troll and that he tried to kill Harry during the first Quidditch match. Snape had been trying to protect Harry all along. Quirrell serves Voldemort and, after failing to steal the Philosopher's Stone from Gringotts, allowed his master to possess him in order to improve their chances of success. This, however, proves a difficult task because the only other object in the room is the Mirror of Erised, which will not reveal to Quirrell where the Stone is. At Voldemort's bidding, Quirrell forces Harry to stand in front of the Mirror. The mirror shows Harry finding the stone. Harry feels the Stone drop into his pocket and tries to stall. Quirrell removes his turban, revealing the face of Voldemort on the back of his head. Voldemort/Quirrell tries to grab the Stone from Harry, but simply touching Harry causes Quirrell's flesh to burn.
After further struggles, Harry passes out. He awakes in the school hospital, where Professor Dumbledore tells him that he survived because his mother sacrificed her life to protect him, and Voldemort could not understand the power of such love. Voldemort left Quirrell to die and is likely to return by some other means. The Stone has now been destroyed. The school year ends at the final feast, during which Gryffindor wins the House Cup. Harry returns to the Dursley's for the summer holiday, but does not tell them that under-age wizards are forbidden to use magic outside Hogwarts.










Main characters[edit]
Harry Potter is an orphan whom Rowling imagined as a "scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard."[3] She developed the series' story and characters to explain how Harry came to be in this situation and how his life unfolded from there.[4] Apart from the first chapter, the events of this book take place just before and in the year following Harry's eleventh birthday. Voldemort's attack left a lightning bolt-shaped scar on Harry's forehead,[4] which produces stabbing pains when Voldemort feels any strong emotion. Harry has prodigious natural talent for Quidditch and the ability to persuade friends by passionate speeches.
Ron Weasley is Harry's age and Rowling describes him as the ultimate best friend, "always there when you need him."[5] He was freckled, red haired and quite tall. He grew up in a fairly large pure-blood family as the sixth born of seven children. Although his family was quite poor, they still lived very comfortably and happy. His loyalty and bravery in the face of a game of Wizards Chess play a vital part in finding the Philosopher's Stone.
Hermione Granger, the daughter of an all-Muggle family, is a bossy girl who has apparently memorised most of the textbooks before the start of term. Rowling described Hermione as a "very logical, upright and good" character[6] with "a lot of insecurity and a great fear of failure beneath her swottiness".[6] Despite her nagging efforts to keep Harry and Ron out of trouble, she becomes a close friend of the two boys after they save her from a troll, and her magical and analytical skills play a vital part in finding the Philosopher's Stone.She had brown bushy hair and rather large front teeth.
Neville Longbottom is a plump, diffident boy, so forgetful that his grandmother gives him a Remembrall. Neville's magical abilities are weak and appeared just in time to save his life when he was eight. Despite his timidity, Neville will fight anyone after some encouragement or if he thinks it is right and important.
Hagrid, a half-giant nearly 12 feet (3.7 m) tall, with tangled black hair and beard, was expelled from Hogwarts and his wand was broken, but Professor Dumbledore let him stay on as the school's gamekeeper, a job which enables him to lavish affection and pet names on even the most dangerous of magical creatures. Hagrid is fiercely loyal to Dumbledore and quickly becomes a close friend of Harry, Ron and later Hermione, but his carelessness makes him unreliable.
Professor Dumbledore, a tall, thin man who wears half-moon spectacles and has silver hair and a beard that tucks into his belt, is the headmaster of Hogwarts, and thought to be the only wizard Voldemort fears. Dumbledore, while renowned for his achievements in magic, finds it difficult to resist sweets and has a whimsical sense of humour. Although he shrugs off praise, he is aware of his own brilliance. Rowling described him as the "epitome of goodness".[7]
Professor McGonagall, a tall, severe-looking woman with black hair tied in a tight bun, teaches Transfiguration, and sometimes transforms herself into a cat. She is in charge of Gryffindor House, and according to the author, "under that gruff exterior" is "a bit of an old softy".[8]
Petunia Dursley, the sister of Harry's mother Lily, is a thin woman with a long neck that she uses for spying on the neighbours. She regards her magical sister as a freak and tries to pretend that she never existed. Her husband Vernon is a heavily-built man whose irascible bluster covers a narrow mind and a fear of anything unusual. Their son Dudley is an overweight, spoiled bully.
Draco Malfoy is a slim, pale boy who speaks in a bored drawl. He is arrogant about his skill in Quidditch, and despises anyone who is not a pure blood wizard – and wizards who do not share his views. His parents had supported Voldemort, but changed sides after the dark wizard's disappearance. Draco avoids direct confrontations, and tries to get Harry and his friends into trouble.
Twitching, stammering Professor Quirrell teaches Defence Against the Dark Arts. Reputedly he was a brilliant scholar, but his nerve was shattered by an encounter with vampires. Quirrell wears a turban to conceal the fact that he is voluntarily possessed by Voldemort, whose face appears on the back of Quirrell's head.
Professor Snape, who has a hooked nose, sallow complexion and greasy black hair, teaches Potions, but is eager to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts. Snape praises pupils in Slytherin, his own House, but seizes every opportunity to humiliate others, especially Harry. Several incidents, beginning with the shooting pain in Harry's scar near the end of the first dinner, lead Harry and his friends to think Snape is a follower of Voldemort.
The school's caretaker, Filch, knows the school's secret passages better than anyone else except possibly the Weasley twins. His cat, Mrs. Norris, aids his hunts for misbehaving pupils. Other members of Hogwarts staff include: the dumpy Herbology teacher Professor Sprout; Professor Flitwick, the tiny and excitable Charms teacher, who is discreetly friendly towards Harry; the soporific History of Magic teacher, Professor Binns, a ghost who does not seem to have noticed his own death; and Madam Hooch, the Quidditch coach, who is strict but a considerate, methodical teacher. The poltergeist Peeves wanders around the buildings causing trouble for whomever he can.





Development, publication and reception[edit]
Development[edit]
In 1990 Jo Rowling, as she preferred to be known,[b] wanted to move with her boyfriend to a flat in Manchester and in her words, "One weekend after flat hunting, I took the train back to London on my own and the idea for Harry Potter fell into my head... A scrawny, little, black-haired, bespectacled boy became more and more of a wizard to me... I began to write Philosopher's Stone that very evening. Although, the first couple of pages look nothing like the finished product."[9] Then Rowling's mother died and, to cope with her pain, Rowling transferred her own anguish to the orphan Harry.[9] Rowling spent six years working on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and in 1996 obtained a grant of £8,000 from the Scottish Arts Council, which enabled her to finish the book and plan the sequels.[15] She sent the book to an agent and a publisher, and then the second agent she approached spent a year trying to sell the book to publishers, most of whom thought it was too long at about 90,000 words. Barry Cunningham, who was building a portfolio of distinctive fantasies by new authors for Bloomsbury Children's Books, recommended accepting the book,[15] and the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury's chief executive said it was "so much better than anything else".[16]
Publication and reception in the United Kingdom[edit]



 Imitation of the fictional Platform 9¾ at the real King's Cross railway station, with a luggage trolley apparently halfway through the magical wall
Bloomsbury accepted the book, paying Rowling a £2,500 advance,[17] and Cunningham sent proof copies to carefully chosen authors, critics and booksellers in order to obtain comments that could be quoted when the book was launched.[15] He was less concerned about the book's length than about its author's name, as the title sounded like a boys' book and boys prefer books by male authors. Rowling therefore adopted the nom de plume J.K. Rowling just before publication.[15] In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher's Stone with an initial print-run of 500 copies in hardback, three hundred of which were distributed to libraries.[18] The short initial print run was standard for first novels, and Cunningham hoped booksellers would read the book and recommend it to customers.[15] Examples from this initial print run have become quite valuable, selling for as much as US$33,460 in a 2007 Heritage Auction.[19]
Lindsey Fraser, who had supplied one of the blurb comments,[15] wrote what is thought to be the first published review, in The Scotsman on 28 June 1997. She described Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as "a hugely entertaining thriller" and Rowling as "a first-rate writer for children".[15][20] Another early review, in The Herald, said, "I have yet to find a child who can put it down." Newspapers outside Scotland started to notice the book, with glowing reviews in The Guardian, The Sunday Times and The Mail on Sunday, and in September 1997 Books for Keeps, a magazine that specialised in children's books, gave the novel four stars out of five.[15] The Mail on Sunday rated it as "the most imaginative debut since Roald Dahl"; a view echoed by the Sunday Times ("comparisons to Dahl are, this time, justified"), while The Guardian called it "a richly textured novel given lift-off by an inventive wit" and The Scotsman said it had "all the makings of a classic".[15]
In 1997 the UK edition won a National Book Award and a gold medal in the 9 to 11 year-olds category of the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize.[21] The Smarties award, which is voted for by children, made the book well-known within six months of publication, while most children's books have to wait for years.[15] The following year, Philosopher's Stone won almost all the other major British awards that were decided by children.[15][c] It was also shortlisted for children's books awards adjudicated by adults,[22] but did not win. Sandra Beckett comments that books which were popular with children were regarded as undemanding and as not of the highest literary standards – for example the literary establishment disdained the works of Roald Dahl, an overwhelming favourite of children before the appearance of Rowling's books.[23]
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone won two publishing industry awards given for sales rather than literary merit, the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year and the Booksellers' Association / Bookseller Author of the Year.[15] By March 1999 UK editions had sold just over 300,000 copies,[24] and the story was still the UK's best-selling title in December 2001.[25] A Braille edition was published in May 1998 by the Scottish Braille Press.[26]
Platform 9¾, from which the Hogwarts Express left London, was commemorated in the real-life King's Cross railway station with a sign and a trolley apparently passing through the wall.[27]

U.S. publication and reception[edit]



 Original U.S. cover of Sorcerer's Stone
UK to American translation examples[28][29]

UK
American
mum, mam mom
sherbet lemon lemon drop
motorbike motorcycle
chips fries
crisp chip
jelly Jell-O
jacket potato baked potato
jumper sweater



 The 2001 mass market paperback cover[30] for Sorcerer's Stone.
Scholastic Corporation bought the U.S. rights at the Bologna Book Fair in April 1997 for US$105,000, an unusually high sum for a children's book.[15] They thought that a child would not want to read a book with the word "philosopher" in the title and,[31] after some discussion, the American edition was published in October 1998 under the title Rowling suggested, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.[15] Rowling claimed that she regretted this change and would have fought it if she had been in a stronger position at the time.[12] Philip Nel has pointed out that the change lost the connection with alchemy, and the meaning of some other terms changed in translation, for example from UK English "crumpets" to US English "muffin". While Rowling accepted the change from both UK English "mum" and Seamus Finnigan's Irish variant "mam" to "mom" in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, she vetoed this change in the later books. However Nel considered that Scholastic's translations were considerably more sensitive than most of those imposed on UK English books of the time, and that some other changes could be regarded as useful copyedits.[28] Since the UK editions of early titles in the series were published a few months earlier than the American versions, some American readers became familiar with the British English versions after buying them via the Internet.[32]
At first the most prestigious reviewers ignored the book, leaving it to book trade and library publications such as Kirkus Reviews and Booklist, which examined it only by the entertainment-oriented criteria of children's fiction. However, more penetrating specialist reviews (such as one by Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices, which pointed out the complexity, depth and consistency of the world Rowling had built) attracted the attention of reviewers in major newspapers.[33] Although The Boston Globe and Michael Winerip in The New York Times complained that the final chapters were the weakest part of the book[20][34] they and most other American reviewers gave glowing praise.[15][20] A year later the US edition was selected as an American Library Association Notable Book, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1998, and a New York Public Library 1998 Best Book of the Year, and won Parenting Magazine's Book of the Year Award for 1998,[21] the School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, and the American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults.[15]
In August 1999 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone topped the New York Times list of best-selling fiction,[35] and stayed near the top of the list for much of 1999 and 2000, until the New York Times split its list into children's and adult sections under pressure from other publishers who were eager to see their books given higher placings.[23][33] Publishers Weekly's report in December 2001 on cumulative sales of children's fiction placed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone 19th among hardbacks (over 5 million copies) and 7th among paperbacks (over 6.6 million copies).[36]



 10th anniversary US cover of Sorcerer's Stone.
In May 2008, Scholastic announced the creation of a 10th Anniversary Edition of the book that was released on 23 September 2008 to mark the tenth anniversary of the original American release.[37]
Translations[edit]
Main article: Harry Potter in translation
By mid-2008 official translations of the book were published in 67 languages.[38][39] Bloomsbury have published translations in Latin and in Ancient Greek,[40][41] and the latter was described as "one of the most important pieces of Ancient Greek prose written in many centuries".[42]
Style and themes[edit]
See also: Harry Potter influences and analogues
Philip Nel highlighted the influence of Jane Austen, whom Rowling has greatly admired since the age of twelve. Both novelists encourage re-reading, because details that look insignificant foreshadow important events or characters much later in the story-line – for example Sirius Black is briefly mentioned near the beginning of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and then becomes a major character in the third to fifth books. Like Austen's heroines, Harry often has to re-examine his ideas near the ends of books. Some social behaviour in the Harry Potter books is remininiscent of Austen, for example the excited communal reading of letters. Both authors satirise social behaviour and give characters names that express their personalities. However in Nel's opinion Rowling's humour is more based on caricature and the names she invents are more like those found in Charles Dickens's stories,[20]:13–15 and Amanda Cockrell noted that many of these express their owners' traits through allusions that run from ancient Roman mythology to eighteenth century German literature.[43] Rowling, like the Narnia series' author C.S. Lewis, thinks there is no rigid distinction between stories for children and for adults. Nel also noted that, like many good writers for children, Rowling combines literary genres – fantasy, young-adult fiction, boarding school stories, Bildungsroman and many others.[20]:51–52
Some reviewers compared Philosopher's Stone to the stories of Roald Dahl, who died in 1990. Many writers since the 1970s had been hailed as his successor, but none had attained anything near his popularity with children and, in a poll conducted shortly after the launch of Philosopher's Stone, seven of the ten most popular children's books were by Dahl, including the one in top place. The only other really popular children's author of the late 1990s was an American, R. L. Stine. Some of the story elements in Philosopher's Stone resembled parts of Dahl's stories; for example, the hero of James and the Giant Peach lost his parents and had to live with a pair of unpleasant aunts — one fat and one thin rather like Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, who treated Harry as a servant. However Harry Potter was a distinctive creation, able to take on the responsibilities of an adult while remaining a child inside.[15]
Librarian Nancy Knapp and marketing professor Stephen Brown noted the liveliness and detail of descriptions, especially of shop scenes such as Diagon Alley.[21][44] Tad Brennan commented that Rowling's writing resembles that of Homer: "rapid, plain, and direct in expression."[42] Stephen King admired "the sort of playful details of which only British fantasists seem capable" and concluded that they worked because Rowling enjoys a quick giggle and then moves briskly forward.[45]
Nicholas Tucker described the early Harry Potter books as looking back to Victorian and Edwardian children's stories: Hogwarts was an old-style boarding school in which the teachers addressed pupils formally by their surnames and were most concerned with the reputations of the houses with which they were associated; characters' personalities were plainly shown by their appearances, starting with the Dursleys; evil or malicious characters were to be crushed rather than reformed, including Filch's cat Mrs Norris; and the hero, a mistreated orphan who found his true place in life, was charismatic and good at sports, but considerate and protective towards the weak.[46] Several other commentators have stated that the books present a highly stratified society including many social stereotypes.[47] However Karin Westerman drew parallels with 1990s Britain: a class system that was breaking down but defended by those whose power and status it upheld; the multi-ethnic composition of Hogwarts' students; the racial tensions between the various intelligent species; and school bullying.[48]
Susan Hall wrote that there is no rule of law in the books, as the actions of Ministry of Magic officials are unconstrained by laws, accountability or any kind of legal challenge. This provides an opportunity for Voldemort to offer his own horrific version of order. As a side-effect Harry and Hermione, who were brought up in the highly regulated Muggle world, find solutions by thinking in ways unfamiliar to wizards. For example Hermione notes that one obstacle to finding the Philosopher's Stone is a test of logic rather than magical power, and that most wizards have no chance of solving it.[49]
Nel suggested that the unflattering characterisation of the extremely conventional, status-conscious, materialistic Dursleys was Rowling's reaction to the family policies of the British government in the early 1990s, which treated the married heterosexual couple as the "preferred norm", while the author was a single mother. Harry's relationships with adult and juvenile wizards are based on affection and loyalty. This is reflected in his happiness whenever he is a temporary member of the Weasley family throughout the series, and in his treatment of first Rubeus Hagrid and later Remus Lupin and Sirius Black as father-figures.[20]:13–15, 47–48[43]
Legacy[edit]
Sequels[edit]
The second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was originally published in the UK on 2 July 1998 and in the US on 2 June 1999.[50][51] Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was then published a year later in the UK on 8 July 1999 and in the US on 8 September 1999.[50][51] Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published on 8 July 2000 at the same time by Bloomsbury and Scholastic.[52] Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the longest book in the series at 766 pages in the UK version and 870 pages in the US version.[53] It was published worldwide in English on 21 June 2003.[54] Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was published on 16 July 2005, and sold 11 million copies in the first 24 hours of its worldwide release.[55][56] The seventh and final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published 21 July 2007.[57] The book sold 11 million copies within 24 hours of its release: 2.7 million copies in the UK and 8.3 million in the US.[58]
Film version[edit]
Main article: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film)
In 1999, Rowling sold the film rights of the first four Harry Potter books to Warner Bros. for a reported £1 million ($1,982,900).[59] Rowling demanded that the principal cast be kept strictly British, but allowed for the casting of Irish actors such as the late Richard Harris as Dumbledore, and of foreign actors as characters of the same nationalities in later books.[60] After extensive casting,[61] filming began in October 2000 at Leavesden Film Studios and in London, with production ending in July 2001.[62] Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released in London on 14 November 2001.[63][64] Reviewers' comments were positive, as reflected by a 80% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes,[65] and by a score of 64% at Metacritic representing "generally favourable reviews".[66]
Video games[edit]
Main article: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (video game)
Video games loosely based on the book were released between 2001 and 2003, generally under the American title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Most were published by Electronic Arts but produced by different developers:

Publisher
Year
Platform
Type
Metacritic score
Notes

Electronic Arts 2001 MS Windows Role-playing game[67] 65%[68] 
Aspyr 2002 Mac OS 9 Role-playing game[69][70] (not available)[71] Same as Windows version[70]
Electronic Arts 2001 Game Boy Color Role-playing game[72] (not available)[71]  
Electronic Arts 2001 Game Boy Advance "Adventure/puzzle" game[73] 64%[74]  
Electronic Arts 2003 GameCube "Action adventure"[75] 62%[76]  
Electronic Arts 2001 PlayStation Role-playing game[77] 64%[78]  
Electronic Arts 2003 PlayStation 2 "Action adventure"[79] 56%[80]  
Electronic Arts 2003 Xbox "Action adventure"[81] 59%[82]  

Uses in education and business[edit]
Educationalists have found that children's literacy is directly related to how many words they read per year, and they read much more if they find material they like. A 2001 survey by The New York Times estimated that almost 60% of US children aged between 6 and 17 had read at least one Harry Potter book. Surveys in other countries, including India and South Africa, found that children were enthusiastic about the series. Since even the first two books are quite long, a child who has read the first four will have read over four times the number of pages in a year's worth of school reading texts. This greatly improves children's skills and their motivation to read.[21]
Writers on education and business subjects have used the book as an object lesson. Writing about clinical teaching in medical schools, Jennifer Conn contrasted Snape's technical expertise with his intimidating behaviour towards students; on the other hand Quidditch coach Madam Hooch illustrated useful techniques in the teaching of physical skills, including breaking down complex actions into sequences of simple ones and helping students to avoid common errors.[83] Joyce Fields wrote that the books illustrate four of the five main topics in a typical first-year sociology class: "sociological concepts including culture, society, and socialisation; stratification and social inequality; social institutions; and social theory".[47]
Stephen Brown noted that the early Harry Potter books, especially Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, were a runaway success despite inadequate and poorly-organised marketing. Brown advised marketing executives to be less preoccupied with rigorous statistical analyses and the "analysis, planning, implementation, and control" model of management. Instead he recommended that they should treat the stories as "a marketing masterclass", full of enticing products and brand names.[44] For example, a real-world analogue of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans was introduced under licence in 2000 by toymaker Hasbro.[44][84]
Footnotes[edit]
Notes[edit]
a.Jump up ^ The film's version of this incident is different from the book's.[2]
b.Jump up ^ J.K. Rowling was christened Joanne Rowling, without a middle name, and adopted the nom de plume J.K. Rowling for publication.[12] She says that she was always known as "Jo"[13] The book's copyright page gives her name as "Joanne Rowling".[14]
c.Jump up ^ The Children's Book Award, The Young Telegraph Paperback of the Year Award, the Birmingham Cable Children's Book Award and the Sheffield Children's Book Award.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, US Version, Page 85
2.Jump up ^ Rowling, J.K. (1997). Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Bloomsbury. pp. 109–113. ISBN 0-7475-3274-5.
3.^ Jump up to: a b "J. K. Rowling Official Site: Biography". J. K. Rowling. 2007. Archived from the original on 17 December 2008. Retrieved 11 January 2009.
4.^ Jump up to: a b c Rowling, J. K. (20 October 1999). Interview with J. K. Rowling. with Diane Rehm. Accio Quote. The Diane Rehm Show. WAMU. Washington. Retrieved 2 March 2009. "I saw Harry very very very clearly ... And I knew he didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry ... but for some mysterious reason, the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since."
5.^ Jump up to: a b "Harry Potter and Me". Accio Quote. Retrieved 1 August 2013.
6.^ Jump up to: a b c d Fraser, Lindsey (15 August 2004). "J K Rowling at the Edinburgh Book Festival". Accio Quote. Retrieved 12 January 2009.
7.^ Jump up to: a b Solomon, Evan (13 July 2000). "J.K. Rowling Interview". CBCNewsWorld Hot Type. Accio Quote. Retrieved 12 January 2009.
8.^ Jump up to: a b "About the Books: transcript of J.K. Rowling's live interview on Scholastic.com". Scholastic.com. Accio Quote. 16 October 2000. Retrieved 12 January 2009.
9.^ Jump up to: a b c Riccio, Heather (1995–2009). "Interview with JK Rowling, Author of Harry Potter". Hilary Magazine. Retrieved 12 January 2009.
10.Jump up ^ "Lydon, Christopher. J.K. Rowling interview transcript". The Connection (WBUR Radio). Accio Quote. 12 October 1999. Retrieved 12 January 2009.
11.Jump up ^ Lydon, Christopher (12 October 1999). "J.K. Rowling interview transcript". The Connection. Accio Quote. Retrieved 22 January 2009.
12.^ Jump up to: a b "BBC "Red Nose Day" Online Chat Transcript". BBC. MuggleNet. 12 March 2001. Retrieved 2 August 2013.
13.Jump up ^ Rogers, Shelagh (23 October 2000). "Interview: J.K. Rowling". This Morning. Accio Quote. Retrieved 3 August 2013.
14.Jump up ^ Rowling, J.K. (1997). Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Bloomsbury. p. copyright notice. ISBN 0-7475-3274-5.
15.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Eccleshare, Julia (2002). "The Publishing of a Phenomenon". A guide to the Harry Potter novels. Continuum International. pp. 7–14. ISBN 0-8264-5317-1. Retrieved 15 May 2009.
16.Jump up ^ "Revealed: the eight-year-old girl who saved Harry Potter". The Independent (London). 3 July 2005. Retrieved 20 May 2009.
17.Jump up ^ Lawless, John (29 May 2005). "Nigel Newton". Bloomberg Businessweek (McGraw-Hill). Retrieved 9 September 2006.
18.Jump up ^ Elisco, Lester. "The Phenomenon of Harry Potter". TomFolio.com. Retrieved 22 January 2009.
19.Jump up ^ "J.K. Rowling: The Rare True First Edition of the First Harry Potter Book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.". Heritage Auctions. 26 October 2007. Retrieved 9 September 2010.
20.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Nel, Philip (2001). "Reviews of the Novels". J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels: a reader's guide. Continuum International. pp. 53–55. ISBN 0-8264-5232-9. Retrieved 15 May 2009.
21.^ Jump up to: a b c d Knapp, N.F. (2003). "In Defense of Harry Potter: An Apologia". School Libraries Worldwide (International Association of School Librarianship) 9 (1): 78–91. Retrieved 14 May 2009.
22.Jump up ^ "Awards". Arthur A. Levine Books. Retrieved 21 May 2006.
23.^ Jump up to: a b Beckett, Sandra L. (2008). "Child-to-Adult Crossover Fiction". Crossover Fiction. Taylor & Francis. pp. 112–115. ISBN 0-415-98033-X. Retrieved 16 May 2009.
24.Jump up ^ "Children's Books: Bestsellers". The Independent (UK). 27 March 1999. Retrieved 16 May 2009.
25.Jump up ^ Jury, J. (22 December 2001). "Harry Potter hides fall in number of books sold a downturn in book sales". The Independent (London). Archived from the original on 7 July 2010. Retrieved 16 May 2009.
26.Jump up ^ Thomas, Scott (2007). The Making of the Potterverse: A Month-by-Month Look at Harry's First 10 Years. ECW Press. p. 5. ISBN 1-55022-763-7. Retrieved 28 May 2009.
27.Jump up ^ "Platform alteration for Hogwarts Express as King's Cross upgrade steps up a gear". London: Network Rail. 17 February 2009. Retrieved 15 May 2009.
28.^ Jump up to: a b Nel, Philip (2004). "You Say "Jelly", I Say "Jell-O"?". In Whited, Lana A. The ivory tower and Harry Potter. University of Missouri Press. pp. 261–269. ISBN 0-8262-1549-1. Retrieved 15 May 2009.
29.Jump up ^ "Differences in the UK and US Versions of Four Harry Potter Books". University of Tampere. 7 May 2010. Retrieved 17 August 2008.
30.Jump up ^ J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Book 1). Amazon.com. ISBN 9780439362139. Retrieved 2012-10-28.
31.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". The Harry Potter Lexicon. 2 April 2006. Retrieved 12 January 2009.
32.Jump up ^ Cowell, Alan (18 October 1999). "Harry Potter and the Magic Stock; A Children's Book Series Helps Rejuvenate a British Publisher". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 May 2009.
33.^ Jump up to: a b Unsworth, John M. "20th-Century American Bestsellers". UIUC Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Archived from the original on 20 August 2012. Retrieved 16 May 2009.
34.Jump up ^ Winerip, Michael (14 February 1999). "Children's Books". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 January 2009.
35.Jump up ^ "New York Times Best Seller Number Ones Listing Fiction By Date". Hawes Publications. Retrieved 16 May 2009.
36.Jump up ^ "All-Time Bestselling Children's Books". Publishers Weekly 248 (51). 17 December 2001. Retrieved 22 January 2009.
37.Jump up ^ "Scholastic Reveals Sorcerer's Stone Anniversary Edition". MuggleNet. 20 May 2008. Archived from the original on 12 May 2008. Retrieved 12 January 2009.
38.Jump up ^ "Rowling 'makes £5 every second'". BBC. 3 October 2008. Retrieved 17 October 2008.
39.Jump up ^ Dammann, Guy (18 June 2008). "Harry Potter breaks 400m in sales". London: Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved 17 October 2008.
40.Jump up ^ Rowling, J.K.; Needham, P. (2003). Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis (in Latin). Bloomsbury USA Children's Books. ISBN 1-58234-825-1.
41.Jump up ^ Rowling, J.K.; Wilson, A. (2004). Άρειος Ποτηρ καὶ ἡ τοῦ φιλοσόφου λίθος (in Ancient Greek). Bloomsbury USA Children's Books. ISBN 1-58234-826-X.
42.^ Jump up to: a b Brennan, Tad (7 August 2005). "J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Translated into Ancient Greek by Andrew Wilson". Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Bryn Mawr College). Retrieved 16 May 2009.
43.^ Jump up to: a b Cockrell, Amanda (2004). "Harry Potter and the Secret Password". In Whited, Lana A. The ivory tower and Harry Potter. University of Missouri Press. pp. 23–24. ISBN 0-8262-1549-1. Retrieved 15 May 2009.
44.^ Jump up to: a b c Brown, Stephen (2002). "Marketing for Muggles: The Harry Potter way to higher profits". Business Horizons 45 (1): 6–14. doi:10.1016/S0007-6813(02)80004-0.
45.Jump up ^ King, Stephen (23 July 2000). "Wild About Harry". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 May 2009.
46.Jump up ^ Tucker, Nicholas (December 1999). "The Rise and Rise of Harry Potter". Children's Literature in Education 30 (4): 221–234. doi:10.1023/A:1022438704330.
47.^ Jump up to: a b Fields, Joyce W. (2007). "Harry Potter, Benjamin Bloom, and the Sociological Imagination". International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 19 (2): 167–177. Retrieved 15 May 2009.
48.Jump up ^ Westman, Karin E. (2004). "Specters of Thatcherism". In Whited, Lana A. The ivory tower and Harry Potter. University of Missouri Press. pp. 306–308. ISBN 0-8262-1549-1. Retrieved 15 May 2009.
49.Jump up ^ Hall, Susan (2003). "Harry Potter and the Rule of Law". In Anatol, Giselle Liza. Reading Harry Potter. Greenwood Publishing. pp. 147–162. ISBN 0-313-32067-5. Retrieved 15 May 2009.
50.^ Jump up to: a b "A Potter timeline for muggles". Toronto Star. 14 July 2007. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
51.^ Jump up to: a b "Harry Potter: Meet J.K. Rowling". Scholastic Inc. Archived from the original on 22 August 2008. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
52.Jump up ^ "Speed-reading after lights out". The Guardian (London: Guardian News and Media Limited). 19 July 2000. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
53.Jump up ^ Harmon, Amy (14 July 2003). "Harry Potter and the Internet Pirates". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 August 2008.
54.Jump up ^ Cassy, John (16 January 2003). "Harry Potter and the hottest day of summer". The Guardian (London: Guardian News and Media Limited). Retrieved 27 September 2008.
55.Jump up ^ "July date for Harry Potter book". BBC. 21 December 2004. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
56.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter finale sales hit 11 m". BBC News. 23 July 2007. Retrieved 21 August 2008.
57.Jump up ^ "Rowling unveils last Potter date". BBC. 1 February 2007. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
58.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter finale sales hit 11 m". BBC. 23 July 2007. Retrieved 20 August 2008.
59.Jump up ^ "WiGBPd About Harry". The Australian Financial Review (Accio Quote). 19 July 2000. Retrieved 26 May 2007.
60.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". The Guardian (UK). 16 November 2001. Retrieved 26 May 2007.
61.Jump up ^ "Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson bring Harry, Ron and Hermione to life for Warner Bros. Pictures' 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'". Warner Brothers. 21 August 2000. Archived from the original on 4 April 2007. Retrieved 26 May 2007.
62.Jump up ^ Schmitz, Greg Dean. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)". Yahoo! Movies. Retrieved 30 May 2007.[dead link]
63.Jump up ^ "Potter Casts Spell at World Premiere". BBC News. 15 November 2001. Retrieved 23 September 2007.
64.Jump up ^ Linder, Brian (17 May 2000). "Bewitched Warner Bros. Delays Potter". IGN. Retrieved 8 July 2007.
65.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 8 July 2007.
66.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". Metacritic. Retrieved 20 July 2007.
67.Jump up ^ Casamassina, Matt (16 November 2001). "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (PC)". IGN. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
68.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (PC)". Metacritic. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
69.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone (Mac)". IGN. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
70.^ Jump up to: a b "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Mac)". Future Publishing Limited. 15 April 2002. Archived from the original on 4 August 2009. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
71.^ Jump up to: a b "Search results: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (games)". Metacritic. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
72.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (GBC)". IGN. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
73.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (GBA)". Retrieved 25 May 2009.
74.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (GBA)". Metacritic. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
75.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (GameCube)". IGN. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
76.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Cube)". Metacritic. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
77.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (PS)". Retrieved 25 May 2009.
78.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (PSX)". Metacritic. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
79.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (PS2)". IGN. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
80.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (PS2)". Metacritic. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
81.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Xbox)". IGN. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
82.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Xbox)". Metacritic. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
83.Jump up ^ Conn, Jennifer J. (2002). "What can clinical teachers learn from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone?". Medical Education 36 (12): 1176–1181. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2923.2002.01376.x. PMID 12472752.
84.Jump up ^ "Hasbro Wins Wide Range of Rights for Harry Potter from Warner Bros. Consumer Products". Burbank, California: Time Warner. 11 February 2000. Retrieved 14 May 2009.
External links[edit]
 The Wikibook Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter has a page on the topic of: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Book icon Harry Potter at Wikipedia books
 Quotations related to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone at Wikiquote
Background information and storylines from the Harry Potter Lexicon
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on Open Library at the Internet Archive

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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

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Harry Potter books
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.jpg
Author
J. K. Rowling
Illustrators
Cliff Wright (UK)
Mary GrandPré (US)
Genre
Fantasy
Publishers
Bloomsbury (UK)
Arthur A. Levine/
Scholastic (US)
Raincoast (Canada)
Released
2 July 1998 (UK)
 2 June 1999 (US)
Book no.
Two
Sales
Unknown
Story timeline
13 June 1943
 31 July 1992 – 29 May 1993
Chapters
18
Pages
251 (UK)
 341 (US)
ISBN
0-7475-3849-2
Preceded by
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Followed by
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is the second novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling. The plot follows Harry's second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, during which a series of messages on the walls on the school's corridors warn that the "Chamber of Secrets" has been opened and that the "heir of Slytherin" would kill all pupils who do not come from all-magical families. These threats are followed by attacks which leave residents of the school "petrified" (that is, frozen). Throughout the year, Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger investigate the attacks.
The book was published in the United Kingdom on 2 July 1998 by Bloomsbury and in the United States on 2 June 1999 by Scholastic Inc. Although Rowling found it difficult to finish the book, it won high praise and awards from critics, young readers and the book industry, although some critics thought the story was perhaps too frightening for younger children. Although much like the rest of the series, some religious authorities have condemned its use of magical themes, while others have praised its emphasis on self-sacrifice and on the way in which a person's character is the result of the person's choices.
Several commentators have noted that personal identity is a strong theme in the book, and that it addresses issues of racism through the treatment of non-magical, non-human and non-living characters. Some commentators regard the diary as a warning against uncritical acceptance of information from sources whose motives and reliability cannot be checked. Institutional authority is portrayed as self-serving and incompetent. The book is also known to have some connections to the sixth novel of the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
The film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, released in 2002, became the third film to exceed £600 million in international box office sales and received generally favourable reviews. Video games loosely based on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets were also released for several platforms, and most obtained favourable reviews.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Plot
2 Publication and reception 2.1 Development
2.2 Publication
2.3 Critical response
2.4 Awards and honours
3 Themes 3.1 Connection to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
4 Adaptations 4.1 Film
4.2 Video game
5 References
6 External links
Plot[edit]
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets begins as Harry spends another miserable summer with his only remaining family, the Dursleys. During a dinner party given by Harry's aunt and uncle, Dobby, a house-elf, pops into Harry's bedroom, warning him that if he returns to Hogwarts, terrible things will happen. Harry disregards the warning. Dobby wreaks havoc in the kitchen, infuriating the Dursleys, who angrily imprison Harry. Harry is rescued by his friend Ron Weasley and brothers Fred and George in their flying car, spending the summer at the Weasley home. Harry accidentally ends up in Knockturn Alley, the dark-arts section of Diagon Alley. Fortunately, he encounters his friend Hagrid, Hogwarts's gamekeeper, there to buy flesh-eating slug repellent, who guides him safely back into Diagon Alley to shop for school supplies.
In the company of the Weasleys, Harry encounters the famous Gilderoy Lockhart, who informs everyone that he is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and demands to be in a photo shoot with Harry, revealing his enthusiasm for self-promotion. Soon after, the Weasleys depart with Harry for the train station. When they arrive, Harry and Ron inexplicably cannot get through the secret entrance to Platform 9 ¾, so they decide to fly the Weasley's car to Hogwarts instead. Things get dangerous when Ron loses control of the car, and it falls from the sky into a Whomping Willow (a tree that attacks anyone who approaches it). Surprisingly, Ron and Harry escape from it. But the next day, Ron receives a Howler, from his mother, Molly Weasley, threatening to bring him home if he puts a toe out of line.
Lockhart turns out to be an incompetent teacher, more concerned with personal celebrity than teaching. On Halloween, Mrs. Norris, a cat belonging to the school caretaker's is found petrified. On a wall nearby appears a message: "The Chamber of Secrets has been opened, enemies of the heir beware." Harry, Ron, and Hermione Granger discover that one of Hogwarts' founders, Salazar Slytherin, secretly built the Chamber of Secrets, which is rumoured to contain a monster that only Slytherin's heir can directly control.



 In the novel, Dumbledore owns a pet bird known as a phoenix a famous mythological fire bird. In the novel, the tears of the bird contain healing properties.
Suspecting that Harry's nemesis, Draco Malfoy, is the heir of Slytherin, the trio makes Polyjuice Potion, a brew that takes a month to concoct, but will allow them, for a period of time, to look like someone else. Their makeshift laboratory is in a bathroom haunted by the ghost of Moaning Myrtle.
During a game of Quidditch, Harry's arm is broken by a rogue Bludger, although he still catches the snitch to win the game. Lockhart volunteers to heal the broken bones, but removes them instead. That night, as Harry lies mending in his hospital bed, Dobby appears and admits responsibility for the platform incident and the rogue Bludger and begs Harry to leave Hogwarts, insisting that he is in grave--even mortal--danger. Soon after, a first year student, Colin Creevey, is attacked and petrified.
During the first meeting of Lockhart's new dueling club, Harry duels with Draco, who casts a spell in form of a snake that tries to attack a student, Justin Finch-Fletchley. In his efforts to stop it, Harry unwittingly speaks Parseltongue. The sudden appearance of this ability--also possessed by Salazar Slytherin--shocks everyone, since it suggests that Harry might be Slytherin's heir. Harry comes under further suspicion when he stumbles upon the petrified bodies of Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick.
At Christmas, Harry and Ron use the finished Polyjuice Potion to disguise themselves as Draco's stupid friends Crabbe and Goyle. Harry and Ron discover that Draco is not the heir of Slytherin, and that the Chamber was opened fifty years before.
After a few quiet months, Harry finds a diary in Myrtle's bathroom, which has flooded. He writes in the diary, which responds by displaying the name "Tom Riddle," a boy who 50 years before accused Hagrid of opening the Chamber of Secrets. Some time later, Harry's room is ransacked and the diary taken. Hermione and a Ravenclaw girl, Penelope Clearwater, are petrified as well. Harry and Ron intend to question Hagrid, but before they can, he is accused of opening the Chamber of Secrets again, and is taken to Azkaban prison. Before Hagrid is led away, he secretly instructs the boys to "follow the spiders" into the Forbidden Forest. There they encounter Aragog who tells them the monster who killed the girl 50 years before was not a spider, that the girl's body was found in a bathroom, and that Hagrid is innocent. The boys escape a colony of giant spiders, who are instructed by Aragog to eat them. They also realise that the girl Aragog referred to must have been Moaning Myrtle.



 The novel reveals that the "monster" in the Chamber of Secrets is the legendary reptile known as the Basilisk.
Harry and Ron learn from a piece of paper Hermione was holding when she was attacked that the monster is a Basilisk, a giant snake that kills those who look it in the eye, and later discover the entrance to the Chamber in Myrtle's bathroom. Harry opens the Chamber by speaking Parseltongue. They have brought with them Lockhart, whom they have caught trying to run away from Hogwarts. He steals Ron's wand and attempts a memory charm on them, revealing that he is actually a fraud whose "great accomplishments" were stories he stole from other wizards whose memories he then erased. He admits that the memory charm is the only one which he can do right. As he prepares to erase their memories, Ron's broken wand deflects the spell back at Lockhart, knocking him down and erasing all of his memory. Harry is forced to go on alone after a cave-in caused by Lockhart.
Inside the chamber, Harry finds Ginny's unconscious body, as well as the almost-physical form of Riddle, who reveals that Ginny had been communicating to him by writing in his diary, allowing him to possess her and have her set the Basilisk on the Muggleborns. Ginny had realised that the diary was not what it seemed and tried to dispose of it in Myrtle's bathroom, but stole it back when she saw Harry with it, afraid that her crimes would be revealed. Riddle then forced Ginny to enter the Chamber, in order to lure Harry down there, and by possessing Ginny's soul, began to take physical form. Riddle reveals that his name, Tom Marvolo Riddle, is an anagram for I am Lord Voldemort.
Riddle then summons the Basilisk and orders it to attack Harry. Just when it seems Harry will be killed, Fawkes, Dumbledore's pet phoenix, appears and blinds the Basilisk. Fawkes carries the school Sorting Hat, from which Harry draws a sword and kills the Basilisk, but one of its fangs pierces Harry's arm. Harry is saved by Fawkes's healing tears. Harry then stabs the diary with a Basilisk fang, defeating Riddle and saving Ginny. The two return with Ron and Lockhart to the school, where Ginny is reunited with her parents, and Harry and Ron are commended by Dumbledore. In the aftermath, Harry accuses the school governor, Lucius Malfoy (Draco's father), of putting the journal in Ginny's cauldron and later tricks him into freeing Dobby.
Publication and reception[edit]
Development[edit]
Rowling found it difficult to finish Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets because she was afraid it would not live up to the expectations raised by Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the U.S.). After delivering the manuscript to Bloomsbury on schedule, she took it back for six weeks of revision.[1]
In early drafts of the book, the ghost Nearly Headless Nick sang a self-composed song explaining his condition and the circumstances of his death. This was cut as the book's editor did not care for the poem, which has been subsequently published as an extra on J. K. Rowling's official website.[2] The family background of Dean Thomas was removed because Rowling and her publishers considered it an "unnecessary digression", and she considered Neville Longbottom's own journey of discovery "more important to the central plot".[3]
Publication[edit]



 Original 1999 US cover of Chamber of Secrets.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was published in the UK on 2 July 1998 and in the US on 2 June 1999.[4][5] It immediately took first place in UK best-seller lists, displacing popular authors such as John Grisham, Tom Clancy,[1] and Terry Pratchett,[6] and making Rowling the first author to win the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year for two years in succession.[7] In June 1999 it went straight to the top of three US best-seller lists,[8] including The New York Times'.[9]
First edition printings had several errors, which were fixed in subsequent reprints.[10] Initially Dumbledore said that Voldemort was the last remaining ancestor of Salazar Slytherin, instead of his descendant.[10] Gilderoy Lockhart's book on werewolves is entitled Weekends with Werewolves at one point and Wanderings with Werewolves later in the book.[11]
Critical response[edit]
"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" was met with near universal acclaim. In The Times, Deborah Loudon described Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as a children's book that would be "re-read into adulthood" and highlighted its "strong plots, engaging characters, excellent jokes and a moral message which flows naturally from the story".[12] Fantasy author Charles de Lint agreed, and considered the second Harry Potter book as good as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, a rare achievement among series of books.[13] Thomas Wagner regarded the plot as very similar to that of the first book, based on searching for a secret hidden under the school. However, he enjoyed the parody of celebrities and their fans that centres round Gilderoy Lockhart, and approved of the book's handling of racism.[14] Tammy Nezol found the book more disturbing than its predecessor, particularly in the rash behaviour of Harry and his friends after Harry withholds information from Dumbledore, and in the human-like behaviour of the mandrakes used to make a potion that cures petrification. Nevertheless she considered the second story as enjoyable as the first.[15]
Mary Stuart thought the final conflict with Tom Riddle in the Chamber was almost as scary as in some of Stephen King's works, and perhaps too strong for young or timid children. She commented that "there are enough surprises and imaginative details thrown in as would normally fill five lesser books." Like other reviewers, she thought the book would give pleasure to both children and adult readers.[16] According to Philip Nel, the early reviews gave unalloyed praise while the later ones included some criticisms, although they still agreed that the book was outstanding.[17]
Writing after all seven books had been published, Graeme Davis regarded Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the weakest of the series, and agreed that the plot structure is much the same as in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. He described Fawkes's appearance to arm Harry and then to heal him as a deus ex machina: he said that the book does not explain how Fawkes knew where to find Harry; and Fawkes's timing had to be very precise, as arriving earlier would probably have prevented the battle with the basilisk, while arriving later would have been fatal to Harry and Ginny.[18]
Awards and honours[edit]
Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was the recipient of several awards.[19] The American Library Association listed the novel among its 2000 Notable Children's Books,[20] as well as its Best Books for Young Adults.[21] In 1999, Booklist named Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as one of its Editors' Choices,[22] and as one of its Top Ten Fantasy Novels for Youth.[19] The Cooperative Children's Book center made the novel a CCBC Choice of 2000 in the "Fiction for Children" category.[23] The novel also won Children's Book of the Year British Book Award,[24] and was shortlisted for the 1998 Guardian Children's Award and the 1998 Carnegie Award.[19]
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize 1998 Gold Medal in the 9–11 years division.[24] Rowling also won two other Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The Scottish Arts Council awarded their first ever Children’s Book Award to the novel in 1999,[25] and it was also awarded Whitaker's Platinum Book Award in 2001.[19][26]
Themes[edit]
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets continues the examination of what makes a person who he or she is, which began in the first book. As well as maintaining that Harry's identity is shaped by his decisions rather than any aspect of his birth,[15][27] Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets provides contrasting characters who try to conceal their true personalities: as Tammy Nezol puts it, Gilderoy Lockhart "lacks any real identity" because he is nothing more than a charming liar.[15] Riddle also complicates Harry's struggle to understand himself by pointing out the similarities between the two: "both half-bloods, orphans raised by Muggles, probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin."[28]
Opposition to class, prejudice, and racism is a constant theme of the series. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry's consideration and respect for others extends to the lowly, non-human Dobby and the ghost Nearly Headless Nick.[29] According to Marguerite Krause, achievements in the novel depend more on ingenuity and hard work than on natural talents.[30]
Edward Duffy, an associate professor at Marquette University, says that one of the central characters of Chamber of Secrets is a book, Tom Riddle's enchanted diary, which takes control of Ginny Weasley – just as Riddle planned. Duffy suggests that Rowling intended this as a warning against passively consuming information from sources that have their own agendas.[31] Although Bronwyn Williams and Amy Zenger regard the diary as more like an instant messaging or chat room system, they agree about the dangers of relying too much on the written word, which can camouflage the author, and they highlight a comical example, Lockhart's self-promoting books.[32]
Immorality and the portrayal of authority as negative are significant themes in the novel. Marguerite Krause states that there are few absolute moral rules in Harry Potter's world, for example Harry prefers to tell the truth, but lies whenever he considers it necessary – very like his enemy Draco Malfoy.[30] At the end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore retracts his promise to punish Harry, Ron, and Hermione if they break any more school rules – after Professor McGonagall estimates that they have broken over 100 – and lavishly rewards them for ending the threat from the Chamber of Secrets.[33] Krause further states that authority figures and political institutions receive little respect from Rowling.[30] William MacNeil of Griffith University, Queensland, Australia states that the Minister for Magic is presented as a mediocrity.[34] In his article "Harry Potter and the Secular City", Ken Jacobson suggests that the Ministry as a whole is portrayed as a tangle of bureaucratic empires, saying that "Ministry officials busy themselves with minutiae (e.g. standardising cauldron thicknesses) and coin politically correct euphemisms like 'non-magical community' (for Muggles) and 'memory modification' (for magical brainwashing)."[27]
This novel implies that it begins in 1992: the cake for Nearly-Headless Nick's 500th deathday party bears the words "Sir Nicholas De Mimsy Porpington died 31 October 1492".[35][36]
Connection to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince[edit]
Chamber of Secrets has many links with the sixth book of the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In fact, Half-Blood Prince was the working title of Chamber of Secrets and Rowling says she originally intended to present some "crucial pieces of information" in the second book, but ultimately felt that "this information's proper home was book six".[37] Some objects that play significant roles in Half-Blood Prince first appear in Chamber of Secrets: the Hand of Glory and the opal necklace that are on sale in Borgin and Burkes; a Vanishing Cabinet in Hogwarts that is damaged by Peeves the Poltergeist; and Tom Riddle's diary, which is later shown to be a Horcrux.[38] Additionally, these two novels are the ones with the most focus on Harry's relationship with Ginny Weasley.
Adaptations[edit]
Film[edit]
Main article: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (film)
The film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was released in 2002.[39] Chris Columbus directed the film,[40] and the screenplay was written by Steve Kloves. It became the third film to exceed $600 million in international box office sales, preceded by Titanic, released in 1997, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, released in 2001.[41] The film was nominated for a Saturn Award for the Best Fantasy Film,[41][42] According to Metacritic, the film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets received "generally favourable reviews" with an average score of 63%,[43] and another aggregator, Rotten Tomatoes, gave it a score of 82%.[40]
Video game[edit]
Main article: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (video game)
Video games loosely based on the book were released in 2002, mostly published by Electronic Arts but produced by different developers:

Publisher
Year
Platform
Type
Metacritic score

Electronic Arts 2002 MS Windows Role-playing game[44] 77%[45]
Aspyr 2002 Mac Role-playing game[44] (not available)
Electronic Arts 2002 Game Boy Color Role-playing game[46] (not available)
Electronic Arts 2002 Game Boy Advance Adventure/puzzle game[47] 76%[48]
Electronic Arts 2002 GameCube Action adventure[49] 77%[50]
Electronic Arts 2002 PlayStation Role-playing game[51]
(not available)[52]

Electronic Arts 2002 PlayStation 2 Action adventure[53] 71%[50]
Electronic Arts 2002 Xbox Action adventure[54] 77%[55]

References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b Sexton, Colleen (2007). "Pottermania". J. K. Rowling. Twenty-First Century Books. pp. 77–78. ISBN 0-8225-7949-9. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
2.Jump up ^ Rowling, J.K. (2009). "Nearly Headless Nick". Archived from the original on 23 April 2009. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
3.Jump up ^ Rowling, J.K. (2009). "Dean Thomas's background (Chamber of Secrets)". Archived from the original on 2 May 2009. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
4.Jump up ^ "A Potter timeline for muggles". Toronto Star. 14 July 2007. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
5.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter: Meet J.K. Rowling". Scholastic Inc. Archived from the original on 6 January 2010. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
6.Jump up ^ "Digested read: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". The Guardian (London). 25 August 1998. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
7.Jump up ^ Beckett, Sandra (2008). "Child-to-Adult Crossover Fiction". Crossover Fiction. Taylor & Francis. pp. 112–115. ISBN 0-415-98033-X. Retrieved 16 May 2009.
8.Jump up ^ Pais, Arthur (20 June 2003). "Harry Potter: The mania continues...". Rediff.com India Limited. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
9.Jump up ^ "Best Sellers Plus". The New York Times. 20 June 1999. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
10.^ Jump up to: a b Brians, Paul. "Errors: Ancestor / Descendant". Washington State University. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
11.Jump up ^ Rowling, J.K. (1998). Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. London: Bloomsbury. pp. 38, 78. ISBN 0-7475-3848-4.
12.Jump up ^ Loudon, Deborah (18 September 1998). "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – Children's Books". The Times (London). Retrieved 26 May 2009.
13.Jump up ^ de Lint, Charles (January 2000). Books To Look For. Fantasy & Science Fiction. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
14.Jump up ^ Wagner, Thomas (2000). "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". Thomas M. Wagner. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
15.^ Jump up to: a b c Nezol, Tammy. "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)". About.com. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
16.Jump up ^ Stuart, Mary. "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". curledup.com. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
17.Jump up ^ Nel, Phillip (2001). "Reviews of the Novels". J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels: a reader's guide. Continuum International. p. 55. ISBN 0-8264-5232-9. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
18.Jump up ^ Davis, Graeme (2008). "Re-reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". Re-Read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Today! an Unauthorized Guide. Nimble Books LLC. p. 1. ISBN 1-934840-72-6. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
19.^ Jump up to: a b c d "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". Arthur A. Levine Books. 2001–2005. Retrieved 18 July 2009.
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21.Jump up ^ "Best Books for Young Adults". American Library Association. 2000. Archived from the original on 1 May 2009. Retrieved 18 July 2009.
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24.^ Jump up to: a b "ABOUT J.K. ROWLING". Raincoast Books. 2009. Archived from the original on 21 December 2007. Retrieved 18 July 2009.
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26.Jump up ^ "Potter goes platinum". RTÉ. 2009. Retrieved 18 July 2009.
27.^ Jump up to: a b Jacobsen, Ken (2004). "Harry Potter and the Secular City: The Dialectical Religious Vision Of J.K. Rowling". Animus 9: 79–104. Retrieved 27 May 2009.
28.Jump up ^ Cockrell, Amanda (2004). "Harry Potter and the Secret Password". In Whited, L. The ivory tower and Harry Potter. University of Missouri Press. pp. 20–26. ISBN 0-8262-1549-1. Retrieved 27 May 2009.
29.Jump up ^ Knapp, Nancy (2003). "In Defense of Harry Potter: An Apologia". School Libraries Worldwide (International Association of School Librarianship) 9 (1): 78–91. Retrieved 14 May 2009.
30.^ Jump up to: a b c Krause, Marguerite (2006). "Harry Potter and the End of Religion". In Lackey, M., and Wilson, L. Mapping the world of Harry Potter. BenBella Books. pp. 55–63. ISBN 1-932100-59-8. Retrieved 27 May 2009.
31.Jump up ^ Duffy, Edward (2002). "Sentences in Harry Potter, Students in Future Writing Classes". Rhetoric Review (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.) 21 (2): 170–187. doi:10.1207/S15327981RR2102_03. Retrieved 27 May 2009.
32.Jump up ^ Williams, Bronwyn; Zenger, Amy (2007). Popular culture and representations of literacy (in WilliamsZenger2007Literacy). A.A. Routledge. pp. 113–117, 119–121. ISBN 0-415-36095-1. Retrieved 27 May 2009.
33.Jump up ^ Rowling, J.K. (1998). "Dobby's Reward". Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. London: Bloomsbury. pp. 241–243. ISBN 0-7475-3848-4.
34.Jump up ^ MacNeil, William (2002). ""Kidlit" as "Law-And-Lit": Harry Potter and the Scales of Justice". Law and Literature (University of California) 14 (3): 545–564. doi:10.1525/lal.2002.14.3.545. Retrieved 27 May 2009.
35.Jump up ^ Rowling, J.K. (1998). Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. London: Bloomsbury. p. 102. ISBN 0-7475-3848-4.
36.Jump up ^ Whited, L. (2006). "1492, 1942, 1992: The Theme of Race in the Harry Potter Series". The Looking Glass : New Perspectives on Children's Literature 1 (1). Retrieved 20 August 2009.
37.Jump up ^ Rowling, J.K. (29 June 2004). "Title of Book Six: The Truth". Archived from the original on 23 April 2009. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
38.Jump up ^ Davis, Graeme (2008). "Re-reading The Very Secret Diary". Re-Read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Today! an Unauthorized Guide. Nimble Books LLC. p. 74. ISBN 1-934840-72-6. Retrieved 25 May 2009.
39.Jump up ^ Schwarzbaum, Lisa (13 November 2002). "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 8 August 2009.
40.^ Jump up to: a b "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) – Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
41.^ Jump up to: a b "SF Site – News: 25 March 2003". Archived from the original on 29 April 2008. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
42.Jump up ^ "Past Saturn Awards". Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films. 2006. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
43.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
44.^ Jump up to: a b "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (PC)". IGN Entertainment, Inc. 1996-2009. Retrieved 18 July 2009.
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47.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". IGN Entertainment, Inc. 1996-2009. Retrieved 18 July 2009.
48.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". CBS Interactive Inc. 2009. Retrieved 18 July 2009.
49.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". IGN Entertainment, Inc. 1996-2009. Retrieved 18 July 2009.
50.^ Jump up to: a b "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Cube)". CBS Interactive Inc. 2009. Retrieved 18 July 2009.
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52.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (PSX)". CBS Interactive Inc. 2009. Retrieved 18 July 2009.
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54.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". IGN Entertainment, Inc. 1996-2009. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
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External links[edit]

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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

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Harry Potter books
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.jpg
Author
J. K. Rowling
Illustrators
Cliff Wright (UK)
Mary GrandPré (US)
Genre
Fantasy
Publishers
Bloomsbury (UK)
Arthur A. Levine/
Scholastic (US)
Raincoast (Canada)
Released
8 July 1999 (UK)
 8 September 1999 (US)
Book no.
Three
Sales
unknown
Story timeline
31 July 1993 – 12 June 1994
Chapters
22
Pages
317 (UK)
 435 (US)
ISBN
0-7475-4215-5
Preceded by
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Followed by
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling. The book follows Harry, a young wizard, in his third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, during which Harry, along with Ron Weasly and Hermione Granger, investigate Sirius Black, an escaped prisoner from Azkaban, whom they believe is one of Lord Voldermort's old allies.
The book was published in the United Kingdom on 8 July 1999 by Bloomsbury and in the United States on 8 September 1999 by Scholastic Inc.[1][2][3][4] Rowling found the book easy to write, finishing it just a year after she had begun writing it. The book sold 68,000 copies in just three days after its release in the United Kingdom, and since has sold over three million in the country.[5] The book won the 1999 Whitbread Children's Book Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the 2000 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and was short-listed for other awards, including the Hugo.
The film version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, released in 2004, is currently the lowest grossing of the Harry Potter series films. Video games loosely based on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban were also released for several platforms, and most obtained favourable reviews.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Plot
2 Publication and reception 2.1 Pre-release history
2.2 Critical reception
2.3 Awards
2.4 Sales
3 Editions
4 Adaptations 4.1 Film
4.2 Video game
5 References
6 External links
Plot[edit]
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban begins with Harry back at the Dursleys, where he sees on Muggle television that a prisoner named 'Black' has escaped. Harry involuntary inflates Aunt Marge when she comes to visit. This leads to his running away and getting picked up by the Knight Bus. He travels to Diagon Alley, where he meets Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, who asks Harry to stay in Diagon Alley for the remaining two weeks before the start of the school year at Hogwarts.
The night before he is to leave for Hogwarts, Harry learns that the escaped prisoner, Sirius Black, is a convicted murderer, and it is believed that he wants to kill Harry. On the way to Hogwarts, a Dementor boards the train, causing Harry to faint, but he is helped by the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Lupin. Harry, Ron, and Hermione learn that the Dementors will be patrolling the school in an attempt to protect Harry from Black. At Hogwarts, Harry has several problems with the Dementors, including an episode at a Quidditch match, during which he faints and falls off his broomstick from around 50 feet in the air. His broom is smashed by the Whomping Willow. Working with Harry outside class, Lupin teaches him the Patronus Charm to repel Dementors.
On an illegal visit to the village of Hogsmeade (thanks to The Marauder's Map, given to him by Fred Weasley and George Weasley), Harry overhears some of his teachers talking with Fudge about Black, saying that Black betrayed Harry's parents, giving Voldemort access to their house, and that he killed thirteen Muggles and his friend Peter Pettigrew. Ron and Hermione's friendship later suffers when Ron believes that Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, ate his rat, Scabbers. At Christmas, Harry receives a mysterious present, a late-model Firebolt broom. Fearing it might be cursed, Hermione reports the gift to Professor McGonagall, which leads to bad feelings between her and Ron and Harry.
Ron, Hermione, and Harry join the effort to save Hagrid's hippogriff, Buckbeak, from being executed for attacking Draco Malfoy, after Draco provoked him.
Ron then finds Scabbers, but, after hearing the fall of Buckbeak's execution axe, the rat escapes again. Ron chases Scabbers, only to be attacked by a big black dog, which Harry has seen three times before. The dog drags Ron through a tunnel under the Whomping Willow into the Shrieking Shack. Harry and Hermione follow, and there is a brief stand off when they find Ron and Sirius, who has transformed from the dog. Lupin enters, and they explain the situation to Harry and his friends: Lupin is a werewolf, which led to his friends James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew becoming animagi. Lupin explains that Scabbers is actually Pettigrew in his animal form; he has been hiding from Black, whom he had framed for the murders of Harry's parents and the thirteen Muggles. Snape appears and is promptly knocked unconscious. Harry stops Lupin and Black killing Pettigrew, as he feels his father wouldn't have wanted it. As they move back toward Hogwarts, Lupin turns into a werewolf, because he failed to take the potion Snape gave him to prevent transforming. Pettigrew escapes again, but Black prevents Lupin, in his werewolf form, from attacking the others. Some Dementors approach, and the three lose consciousness.
When they wake up in the hospital, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are told that Black has been sentenced to receive the Dementor's kiss, which removes the soul of the recipient. Dumbledore advises Hermione and Harry to use Hermione's time-turner, a device she has been using to double-up on classes. This permits them to save Buckbeak, who carries Black away to safety. Harry then returns to the Dursleys' before the events of the next novel, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Publication and reception[edit]



 Original 1999 US cover of Prisoner of Azkaban.
Pre-release history[edit]
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third book in the Harry Potter series. The first, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in America), was published by Bloomsbury on 26 June 1997 and the second, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published on 2 July 1998.[6] Rowling started to write the Prisoner of Azkaban the day after she finished The Chamber of Secrets.[7]
Of the first three books in the series, Prisoner of Azkaban took the shortest amount of time to write – Philosopher's Stone took five years to complete and Chamber of Secrets required two years, while Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was written in one year.[8] Rowling's favourite aspect of this book was introducing the character Remus Lupin,[8] Rowling additionally said that Prisoner of Azkaban was "the best writing experience I ever had...I was in a very comfortable place writing (number) three. Immediate financial worries were over, and press attention wasn't yet by any means excessive".[9]
Critical reception[edit]
Gregory Maguire wrote a review in The New York Times for Prisoner of Azkaban: in it he said, "So far, in terms of plot, the books do nothing new, but they do it brilliantly...so far, so good."[10] In a newspaper review in The New York Times, it was said that "'The Prisoner of Azkaban' may be the best 'Harry Potter' book yet".[11] A reviewer for Kidsreads.com said, "This crisply-paced fantasy will leave you hungry for the four additional Harry books that J.K. Rowling is working on. Harry's third year is a charm. Don't miss it."[12] Kirkus Reviews did not give a starred review but said, "a properly pulse-pounding climax...The main characters and the continuing story both come along so smartly...that the book seems shorter than its page count: have readers clear their calendars if they are fans, or get out of the way if they are not."[13] Martha V. Parravano also gave a positive review for The Horn Book Magazine, calling it "quite a good book."[14] In addition, a Publishers Weekly review said, "Rowling's wit never flags, whether constructing the workings of the wizard world...or tossing off quick jokes...The Potter spell is holding strong.[15]
However, Anthony Holden, who was one of the judges against Prisoner of Azkaban for the Whitbread Award, was negative about the book, saying that the characters are "all black-and-white", and the "story-lines are predictable, the suspense minimal, the sentimentality cloying every page".[16]
Awards[edit]
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban won several awards, including the 1999 Bram Stoker Award for best work for young readers,[17] the 2000 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel,[18] and the 1999 Whitbread Book of the Year for children's books.[19] It was also nominated for the 2000 Hugo Award for Best Novel, but lost to A Deepness in the Sky.[20] Prisoner of Azkaban additionally won the 2004 Indian Paintbrush Book Award[21] and was named an American Library Association Notable Children's Book in 2000[22] as well as one of their Best Books for Young Adults.[23] As with the previous two books in the series, Prisoner of Azkaban won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize Gold Medal for children aged 9–11. It was the last in the series to do so.[24]
Sales[edit]
Prisoner of Azkaban sold more than 68,000 copies in the UK within three days of publication, which made it the fastest selling British book of the time.[5] The sales total by 2012 is said by The Guardian to be 3,377,906.[3]
Editions[edit]
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was released in hardcover in the UK on 8 July 1999[25] and in the U.S. on 8 September.[26] The British paperback edition was released on 1 April 2000,[27] while the U.S. paperback was released 2 October 2001.[28]
Bloomsbury additionally released an adult edition with a different cover design to the original, in paperback on 10 July 2004[29] and in hardcover on October 2004.[30] A hardcover special edition, featuring a green border and signature, was released on 8 July 1999.[31] In May 2004, Bloomsbury released a Celebratory Edition, with a blue and purple border.[32] On 1 November 2010, they released the 10th anniversary Signature edition illustrated by Clare Mellinsky and in July 2013 a new adult cover illustrated by Andrew Davidson, both these editions were designed by Webb & Webb Design Limited.[33]
Beginning on 27 August 2013, Scholastic will release new covers for the paperback editions of Harry Potter in the United States to celebrate 15 years of the series.[34] The covers were designed by the author and illustrator Kazu Kibuishi.[35]
Adaptations[edit]
Film[edit]
Main article: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film)
The film version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was released in 2004 and was directed by Alfonso Cuarón from a screenplay by Steve Kloves.[36] The film débuted at number one at the box office and held that position for two weeks.[37] It made a total of $795.6 million worldwide,[38] which made it the second highest-grossing film of 2004 behind Shrek 2. However, among all eight entries in the Harry Potter franchise, Prisoner of Azkaban grossed the lowest.[39] The film ranks at number 471 in Empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.[40]
Video game[edit]
Main article: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (video game)
A video game was also released in concurrence with the film, the various versions were released in May and June 2004.[41][42][43] The game was for various platforms: PC, Game Boy Advance, Xbox, Playstation 2, and GameCube.[44] The game was generally well received, with the lowest rating being from IGN, 6/10, for the PC.[45] The highest rating was for the Game boy version, from GameSpot, a 7.5/10/[46]
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling (Book 3)". about.com. Retrieved 23 July 2013.
2.Jump up ^ "The Harry Potter Books". Pottermore. Retrieved 23 July 2013.
3.^ Jump up to: a b "The top 100 bestselling books of all time: how does Fifty Shades of Grey compare?". The Guardian. 9 August 2012. Retrieved 19 July 2013.
4.Jump up ^ "Review: Another harrowing adventure for Harry". Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved 23 July 2013.
5.^ Jump up to: a b "Longing for the clock to strike 12". The Telegraph. 2 May 2003. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
6.Jump up ^ "A Potter timeline for muggles". Toronto Star. 14 July 2004. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
7.Jump up ^ "About the Book". The Remembrall. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
8.^ Jump up to: a b "Barnes & Noble chat transcript". Accio Quote!. 8 September 1999. Retrieved 7 November 2010.
9.Jump up ^ Puig, Claudia (27 April 2004). "New 'Potter' movie sneaks in spoilers from upcoming books". USA Today. Retrieved 17 October 2010.
10.Jump up ^ Maguire, Gregory (5 September 1999). "Lord of the Golden Snitch". The New York Times. Retrieved 13 October 2010.
11.Jump up ^ Macpherson, Karen (1 October 1999). "Rowling has magic touch with 'Prisoner'". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
12.Jump up ^ Maughan, Shannon. "Kidsreads.com — Harry Potter — The Prisoner of Azkaban". Kidsreads.com. Retrieved 7 November 2010.
13.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban review". Kirkus Reviews. 15 September 1999. Retrieved 17 January 2011.
14.Jump up ^ Parravano, Martha V. (November 1999). "Harry Potter reviews". The Horn Book Magazine. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
15.Jump up ^ "Children's Review: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling". Publishers Weekly. 1 October 1999. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
16.Jump up ^ Holden, Anthony (25 June 2000). "Why Harry Potter doesn't cast a spell over me". The Observer (UK). Retrieved 10 February 2011.
17.Jump up ^ "Bram Stoker Awards 1999". Horror Writers Association. Retrieved 18 March 2011.
18.Jump up ^ "2000 Locus Awards". Locus. 2 July 2000. Retrieved 18 March 2011.
19.Jump up ^ "Whitbread Prize 1999". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 18 March 2011.
20.Jump up ^ "2000 Hugo Awards". World Science Fiction Society. Retrieved 18 March 2011.
21.Jump up ^ "Indian Paintbrush Book Awards By Year 1986–2011". Indian Paintbrush Awards. 2004. Retrieved 23 March 2011.
22.Jump up ^ "ALA Notable Children's Books All Ages". Scholastic. 6 November 2007. Retrieved 23 March 2011.
23.Jump up ^ "Best Books for Young Adults". American Library Association. 2000. Retrieved 23 March 2011.
24.Jump up ^ "Awards for the Harry Potter Books". Bloomsbury. Retrieved 27 March 2011.
25.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) (Hardcover)". Amazon.com. ASIN 0747542155. Missing or empty |url= (help)
26.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) (Hardcover)". Amazon.com. ASIN 0439136350. Missing or empty |url= (help)
27.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) paperback". Amazon.com. ASIN 0747546290. Missing or empty |url= (help)
28.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) Paperback". BargainBookStores.com. Retrieved 3 March 2011.
29.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3): Adult Edition (Paperback)". Amazon.com. ASIN 0747574499. Missing or empty |url= (help)
30.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: Adult Edition". Bloomsbury.com. Retrieved 3 March 2011.
31.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3): Special Edition". Amazon.com. ASIN 0747545111. Missing or empty |url= (help)
32.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Celebratory edition". Bloomsbury. Retrieved 3 March 2011.
33.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Signature edition". Amazon.com. ASIN 1408810565. Missing or empty |url= (help)
34.Jump up ^ "Scholastic and Award-Winning Illustrator Kazu Kibuishi Unveil New Cover for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in Celebration of Harry Potter 15th Anniversary" (Press release). Scholastic. 31 July 2013. Retrieved 31 July 2013.
35.Jump up ^ "Book Buzz: 'Harry Potter' gets a cover makeover". USA Today. 28 June 2013. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
36.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)". IGN Entertainment, Inc. 1998-2009. Retrieved 12 December 2009.
37.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". IGN Entertainment, Inc. 1998-2009. Archived from the original on 2010-02-22. Retrieved 12 December 2009.
38.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 5 February 2009.
39.Jump up ^ "2004 WORLDWIDE GROSSES". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 24 September 2007.
40.Jump up ^ "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time". Empire. Retrieved 7 November 2010.
41.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
42.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (PC CD)". Amazon.com. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
43.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". Gamespot UK. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
44.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". Amazon.com. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
45.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". IGN. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
46.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Review". Gamespot. 24 June 2004. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
External links[edit]

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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

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Harry Potter books
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.jpg
Author
J. K. Rowling
Illustrators
Giles Greenfield (UK)
Mary GrandPré (US)
Genre
Fantasy
Publishers
Bloomsbury (UK)
Arthur A. Levine/
Scholastic (US)
Raincoast (Canada)
Released
8 July 2000
Book no.
Four
Sales
over 66 million (worldwide)[1]
Story timeline
Summer 1944
 4 August 1994 – 25 June 1995
Chapters
37
Pages
635 (UK)
 734 (US)
ISBN
0-7475-4624-X
Preceded by
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Followed by
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the fourth novel in the Harry Potter series written by British author J. K. Rowling, featuring Harry Potter, a wizard in his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The book is set during Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and follows the mystery surrounding the entry of Harry's name into the Triwizard Tournament, in which he is forced to compete.
The book was published in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury and in the United States by Scholastic, in both countries the release date was 8 July 2000, the first time a book in the series was published in both countries at the same time. The novel won a Hugo Award, the only Harry Potter novel to do so, in 2001. The book was made into a film, which was released worldwide on 18 November 2005, and a video game by Electronic Arts.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Synopsis 1.1 Plot introduction
1.2 Plot summary
2 Development
3 Themes
4 Publication and reception 4.1 UK/US release 4.1.1 Launch publicity
4.2 Critical reception
4.3 Awards and honours
5 Adaptations 5.1 Film
5.2 Video game
6 References
7 External links
Synopsis[edit]
Plot introduction[edit]
Throughout the three previous novels in the Harry Potter series, the main character, Harry Potter, has struggled with the difficulties of growing up, and the added challenge of being a famed wizard: when Harry was a baby, Lord Voldemort, the most powerful Dark wizard in history, killed Harry's parents but mysteriously vanished after unsuccessfully trying to kill Harry, which left a lightning-shaped scar on Harry's forehead. This results in Harry's immediate fame and his being placed in the care of his muggle, or non-magical aunt and uncle, Aunt Petunia Dursley and Uncle Vernon Dursley, who have a son named Dudley Dursley.
Harry learns that he is a wizard when he is 11,just before he enrolls in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He befriends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, and is confronted by Lord Voldemort who is trying to regain power. In Harry's first year he has to protect the Philosopher's Stone from Voldemort and one of his faithful followers at Hogwarts. After returning to the school after summer break, students at Hogwarts are attacked by the legendary monster of the "Chamber of Secrets" after the chamber is opened. Harry ends the attacks by killing a Basilisk and defeating another attempt by Lord Voldemort to return to full strength. The following year, Harry hears that he has been targeted by escaped mass murderer Sirius Black. Despite stringent security measures at Hogwarts, Harry is confronted by Black at the end of his third year of schooling, and Harry learns that Black was framed and is actually Harry's godfather. He also learned that it was Sirius's and his father's friend Peter Pettigrew who actually betrayed his parents.
Plot summary[edit]
At the start of the book, Harry sees Frank Bryce being killed by Lord Voldemort in a vision, and is awoken by his scar hurting. The Weasleys then take Harry and Hermoine Granger to the Quidditch World Cup, to watch Ireland versus Bulgaria, with Ireland emerging victorious. Afterwards, Voldemort's followers destroy tents, and the Dark Mark gets fired into the sky, which leads to panic: it is the first time the sign has been seen in 13 years. Winky, Barty Crouch Senior's house elf, is blamed for casting the Mark because she's found holding Harry's lost wand, which is revealed to have been used to cast the Mark.
At Hogwarts, the students are told that Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody will be the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher for one year, and Hogwarts will host the Triwizard Tournament, starting in October at the opening feast. However, Professor Dumbledore announces that only those over 17—the age of majority in the wizarding world—will be allowed to enter. At Halloween, the Goblet of Fire picks Fleur Delacour from Beauxbatons Academy; Viktor Krum (who is on Bulgaria's Quidditch team) from Durmstrang Institute; and Cedric Diggory from Hogwarts to compete in the tournament. However, after the goblet has given those three names, it additionally gives Harry's name, leading to suspicion and indignation from everyone, but Harry is magically bound to compete. Ron feels jealous that Harry is once again in the limelight, and refuses to speak to Harry, until after the first task.
The first of three tasks is to retrieve a golden egg, which will give a hint to the next task, from underneath a dragon mother, as Hagrid reveals to Harry. At the task, Harry has to pass a Hungarian Horntail, which he does by summoning his Firebolt broomstick, and finishes the task tied for first with Krum. Ron and Harry subsequently reconcile, Ron now understanding the full danger of the tournament. When Harry later opens the egg, it merely shrieks loudly.
Gossipy reporter Rita Skeeter is, at the same time, writing scathing comments about those at Hogwarts, with those written about including: Hermione, Harry, and Hagrid and Madame Maxime.
Harry then has to ask a partner to the Yule Ball. He wants to ask his crush Cho Chang, but Cedric beats him to it, so Harry and Ron ask Parvati and Padma Patil. Ron is shocked and jealous to see that Krum asked Hermione to the ball. Cedric gives Harry a tip on the egg, telling him to take it to the prefects' bathroom. Harry refuses to take it, jealous at Cedric for being with Cho.
Finally acting on the tip, Harry takes the egg to the prefects' bathroom, where Moaning Myrtle tells him to listen to the egg underwater; there the words are understandable. Harry, learning that the task is to recover something he will "sorely miss", starts looking for spells to help him breathe where the objects will be taken: underwater. However, by the morning if the task, Harry hasn't found a solution, but Dobby gives him some Gillyweed to give Harry gills. Harry completes the task, rescuing Ron from under the lake, and learns that he is now tied with Cedric.
A few days before the final task, Harry and Krum are talking when they see Mr Crouch in the bushes, who seems insane and tells him to get Dumbledore. Leaving Krum with Crouch, Harry fetches Dumbledore, but returns to find Krum Stunned and Crouch gone. Harry learns numerous spells for the final task, a maze with beasts inside, and, at the event, goes in with Cedric, as they are tied for first. When Harry and Cedric reach the cup, they agree that they have helped each other, so they should take the cup at the same time. However, it transpires that the cup is a Portkey, and Harry and Cedric go to a graveyard. Peter Pettigrew kills Cedric, and uses Harry to resurrect Lord Voldemort.
Harry escapes back to Hogwarts with the Portkey, taking Cedric's body with him. When he returns, Moody takes Harry to his office, and reveals that he was the one who put Harry's name into the Goblet of Fire, and has been guiding him through the tournament from behind the scenes to ensure that he would grab the Portkey first. Before Moody can kill Harry, Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape intervene. They learn that Moody is in fact Barty Crouch Junior, Mr Crouch's son. Crouch had sentenced Crouch Jr to life imprisonment in Azkaban over alleged ties to the Death Eaters, but had broken him out as a last favour to his dying wife. Crouch Jr was the one who set off the Dark Mark at the Quidditch World Cup, doing it to scare the Death Eaters he felt had abandoned Voldemort. Eventually, Voldemort had gotten in contact with Crouch Jr, and had him impersonate Moody as part of his plan. Crouch Jr also admits to killing Crouch, to prevent him telling Dumbledore about Voldemort.
Only a limited amount of people believe Harry and Dumbledore about Voldemort's return, and many, including Fudge, disbelieve him. Harry returns home with the Dursleys, having given Fred and George Weasley his winnings to found a joke shop.
Development[edit]
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the fourth book in the Harry Potter series. The first, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was published by Bloomsbury on 26 June 1997; the second, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published on 2 July 1998; and the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, followed on 8 July 1999.[2] Goblet of Fire is considerably longer than the first three; almost twice the size (the paperback edition was 636 pages). Rowling stated that she "knew from the beginning it would be the biggest of the first four". She said there needed to be a "proper run-up" for the conclusion and rushing the "complex plot" could confuse readers. She also stated that "everything is on a bigger scale" which was symbolic, as Harry's horizons widened both literally and metaphorically as he grew up. She also wanted to explore more of the magical world.[3]
Until the official title's announcement on 27 June 2000, the book was called by its working title, Harry Potter and the Doomspell Tournament.[4] J. K. Rowling expressed her indecision about the title in an Entertainment Weekly interview. "I changed my mind twice on what [the title] was. The working title had got out — Harry Potter and the Doomspell Tournament. Then I changed Doomspell to Triwizard Tournament. Then I was teetering between Goblet of Fire and Triwizard Tournament. In the end, I preferred Goblet of Fire because it's got that kind of cup of destiny feel about it, which is the theme of the book."[3]
Rowling mentioned that she originally had a Weasley relative named Malfalda, who, according to Rowling, "was the daughter of the 'second cousin who's a stockbroker' mentioned in Philosopher's Stone. This stockbroker had been very rude to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley in the past, but now he and his (Muggle) wife had inconveniently produced a witch, they came back to the Weasleys asking for their help in introducing her to wizarding society before she starts at Hogwarts".[5] Malfalda was supposed to be a Slytherin and who was to fill in the Rita Skeeter subplot, but eventually was removed as "there were obvious limitations to what an eleven year old closeted at school could discover". Rowling considered Rita Skeeter to be "much more flexible".[5] Rowling also admitted that the fourth book was the most difficult to write at the time, because she noticed a giant plot hole halfway through writing.[3] In particular, Rowling had trouble with the ninth chapter, "The Dark Mark", which she rewrote 13 times.[6]
Themes[edit]
Jeff Jensen, who interviewed Rowling for Entertainment Weekly in 2000, pointed out that bigotry is a big theme in the Harry Potter novels and Goblet of Fire in particular. He mentioned how Voldemort and his followers are prejudiced towards Muggles and how in Goblet of Fire Hermione forms a group to liberate Hogwarts' house-elves who have "been indentured servants so long they lack desire for anything else".[3] When asked why she explored this theme, Rowling replied,

Because bigotry is probably the thing I detest most. All forms of intolerance, the whole idea of that which is different from me is necessary evil. I really like to explore the idea that difference is equal and good. But there's another idea that I like to explore, too. Oppressed groups are not, generally speaking, people who stand firmly together — no, sadly, they kind of subdivide among themselves and fight like hell. That's human nature, so that's what you see here. This world of wizards and witches, they're already ostracized, and then within themselves, they've formed a loathsome pecking order.[3]
She also commented that she did not feel this was too "heavy" for children, as it was one of those things that "huge number of children at that age start to think about".[3]
Publication and reception[edit]



 US cover of Goblet of Fire.
UK/US release[edit]
Goblet of Fire was the first book in the Harry Potter series to be released in the United States on the same date as the United Kingdom, on 8 July 2000,[7] strategically on a Saturday so children did not have to worry about school conflicting with buying the book.[2] It had a combined first-printing of over five million copies.[2] It was given a record-breaking print run of 3.9 million. Three million copies of the book were sold over the first weekend in the US alone.[8] The pressure in editing caused a mistake which shows Harry's father emerging first from Voldemort's wand; however, as confirmed in Prisoner of Azkaban, James died first, so then Harry's mother ought to have come out first.[9] This was corrected in later editions.[10]
Launch publicity[edit]
To publicise the book, a special train named Hogwarts Express was organised by Bloomsbury, and run from King's Cross to Perth, carrying J.K. Rowling, a consignment of books for her to sign and sell, also representatives of Bloomsbury and the press. The book was launched on 8 July 2000, on platform 1 at King's Cross – which had been given "Platform 9 3⁄4" signs for the occasion – following which the train departed. En route it called at Didcot Railway Centre, Kidderminster, the Severn Valley Railway, Crewe (overnight stop), Manchester, Bradford, York, the National Railway Museum (overnight stop), Newcastle, Edinburgh, arriving at Perth on 11 July. The locomotive was West Country class steam locomotive no. 34027 Taw Valley, which was specially repainted red for the tour; it later returned to its normal green livery (the repaints were requested and paid for by Bloomsbury). The coaches of the train included a sleeping car. A Diesel locomotive was coupled at the other end, for use when reversals were necessary, such as the first stage of the journey as far as Ferme Park, just south of Hornsey. The tour generated considerably more press interest than the launch of the film Thomas and the Magic Railroad which was premièred in London the same weekend.[11][12][13]
Critical reception[edit]
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has received mostly positive reviews. In The New York Times Book Review, author Stephen King stated the Goblet of Fire was "every bit as good as Potters 1 through 3" and praised the humour and subplots, although he commented that "there's also a moderately tiresome amount of adolescent squabbling...it's a teenage thing".[14] Kirkus Reviews called it "another grand tale of magic and mystery...and clicking along so smoothly that it seems shorter than it is". However, they commented that it did tend to lag, especially at the end where two "bad guys" stopped the action to give extended explanations, and that the issues to be resolved in sequels would leave "many readers, particularly American ones, uncomfortable".[15] For The Horn Book Magazine, Martha V. Parravano gave a mixed review, saying "some will find [it] wide-ranging, compellingly written, and absorbing; others, long, rambling, and tortuously fraught with adverbs".[16] A Publishers Weekly review praised the book's "red herrings, the artful clues and tricky surprises that disarm the most attentive audience" and saying it "might be her most thrilling yet."[17] Writing for The New Yorker, Joan Acocella noted that "where the prior volumes moved like lightning, here the pace is slower, the energy more dispersed. At the same time, the tone becomes more grim."[18]
Kristin Lemmerman of CNN said that it is not great literature: 'Her prose has more in common with your typical beach-blanket fare and the beginning contained too much recap to introduce characters to new readers, athought Rowling quickly gets back on track, introducing readers to a host of well-drawn new characters.'[19] Writing for Salon.com, Charles Taylor was generally positive about the change of mood and development of characters.[20] Entertainment Weekly's reviewer Kristen Baldwin gave Goblet of Fire the grade of A-, praising the development of the characters as well as the many themes presented. However, she did worry that a shocking climax may be a nightmare factory for young readers.[21]
Awards and honours[edit]
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire won several awards, including the 2001 Hugo Award for Best Novel.[22] It won the 2002 Indian Paintbrush Book Award, the third after Philosopher's Stone and Prisoner of Azkaban.[23] The novel also won an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award for one of the best books, who claimed it was "more intense than the first three books".[24] In addition, Entertainment Weekly listed Goblet of Fire in second place on their list of The New Classics: Books – The 100 best reads from 1983 to 2008.[25]
Adaptations[edit]
Film[edit]
Main article: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was adapted into a film, released worldwide on 18 November 2005, which was directed by Mike Newell and written by Steve Kloves. The film grossed $102.7 million for the opening weekend,[26] and eventually grossed $896 million worldwide.[27] The film was also nominated for Best Art Direction at the 78th Academy Awards.[28]
Video game[edit]
Main article: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (video game)
It was also made into a video game for PC, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, Game Boy Advance, and PlayStation Portable by Electronic Arts. It was released just before the film.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Glenday, Craig, ed. (2008). Guinness World Records 2009. Guinness World Records. ISBN 1-904994-37-7.
2.^ Jump up to: a b c "A Potter timeline for muggles". Toronto Star. 14 July 2007. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
3.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Jensen, Jeff (4 August 2000). "Rowling Thunder". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 28 November 2011.
4.Jump up ^ Hartman, Holly (20 January 2000). "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Pre-release". Infoplease. Retrieved 3 December 2010.
5.^ Jump up to: a b "Section: Extra Stuff". J. K. Rowling Official Site. Archived from the original on 8 February 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
6.Jump up ^ "Comic Relief live chat transcript". Accio Quote!. March 2001. Retrieved 3 December 2010.
7.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". Harry Potter Wikia. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
8.Jump up ^ "2000–2009—The Decade of Harry Potter Gives Kids and Adults a Reason to Love Reading" (Press release). Scholastic. 15 December 2009. Retrieved 3 December 2010.
9.Jump up ^ Rowling, J.K. "At the end of 'Goblet of Fire', in which order should Harry's parents have come out of the wand?". J.K. Rowling Official Site. Archived from the original on 26 November 2011. Retrieved 20 October 2010.
10.Jump up ^ "HPL: Edits and Changes- Goblet of Fire". Harry Potter Lexicon. Retrieved 20 October 2010.
11.Jump up ^ Pigott, Nick, ed. (July 2000). "Headline News: Red livery for Taw Valley?". The Railway Magazine (London: IPC Magazines) 146 (1191): 17.
12.Jump up ^ Pigott, Nick, ed. (August 2000). "Headline News: Taw Valley set for four-day tour in EWS red". The Railway Magazine (London: IPC Magazines) 146 (1192). p. 5, photo; p. 14.
13.Jump up ^ Pigott, Nick, ed. (September 2000). "Headline News: 'Hogwarts Express' shunts 'Thomas' into a siding". The Railway Magazine (London: IPC Magazines) 146 (1193): 15.
14.Jump up ^ King, Stephen (23 July 2000). "'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'". The New York Times. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
15.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". Kirkus Reviews. 1 August 2000. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
16.Jump up ^ Parravano, Martha V. (November 2000). "Harry Potter reviews". The Horn Book Magazine. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
17.Jump up ^ "Children's Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling". Publishers Weekly. 1 August 2000. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
18.Jump up ^ Acocella, Joan (31 July 2000). "Under the Spell". The New Yorker: 74–78.
19.Jump up ^ Lemmerman, Kristin (14 July 2000). "Review: Gladly drinking from Rowling's 'Goblet of Fire'". CNN. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
20.Jump up ^ Taylor, Charles (10 July 2000). "The plot deepens". Salon. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
21.Jump up ^ Baldwin, Kristen (21 July 2001). "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 28 November 2011.
22.Jump up ^ "2001 Hugo Awards". World Science Fiction Society. Retrieved 27 March 2011.
23.Jump up ^ "Indian Paintbrush Book Award — By Year". Retrieved 27 March 2011.
24.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter series". Oppenheim Toy Portfolio. 2000. Retrieved 27 March 2011.
25.Jump up ^ "The New Classics: Books". Entertainment Weekly. 18 June 2007. Retrieved 3 April 2013.
26.Jump up ^ Gray, Brandon (21 November 2005). "Harry Potter's 'Goblet' Runneth Over with Cash". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 28 November 2011.
27.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 28 November 2011.
28.Jump up ^ "The 78th Academy Awards (2006) Nominees and Winners". AMPAS. Retrieved 28 November 2011.
External links[edit]

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

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"HP5" redirects here. For the postal district for Chesham, see HP postcode area. For the black-and-white film from Ilford, see Ilford HP.
"OotP" redirects here. For the baseball simulator, see Out of the Park Baseball.
This article is about the book. For other uses, see Order of the Phoenix (disambiguation).

Harry Potter books
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.jpg
Author
J. K. Rowling
Illustrators
Jason Cockcroft (UK)
Mary GrandPré (US)
Genre
Fantasy
Publishers
Bloomsbury (UK)
Arthur A. Levine/
Scholastic (US)
Raincoast (Canada)
Released
21 June 2003
Book no.
Five
Sales
55 million
Story timeline
2 August 1995 – 17 June 1996
Chapters
38
Pages
766 (UK)
 870 (US)
ISBN
0-7475-5100-6
Preceded by
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Followed by
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling, and was published on 21 June 2003 by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom, Scholastic in the United States, and Raincoast in Canada. Five million copies were sold in the first 24 hours of publication.[1] It is the longest book of the series.
The novel features Harry Potter's struggles through his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, including the surreptitious return of the antagonist Lord Voldemort, O.W.L. exams, and an obstructive Ministry of Magic.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has won several awards, including being named an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults in 2003. The book has also been made into a film, which was released in 2007, and into a video game by Electronic Arts.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Plot
2 Publication and release 2.1 Critical response
2.2 Prequels and sequels
3 Adaptations 3.1 Film
3.2 Video games
4 Translations
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
Plot[edit]
Harry Potter is spending another summer with his dreadful Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon when a pair of Dementors stage an unexpected attack on Harry and his cousin Dudley. After he uses magic to defend himself and Dudley, Harry is temporarily expelled from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for using magic outside of the school, despite being legally allowed to do in self-defence. Soon after, the decision is rescinded.
A few days later, Harry is visited by a group of wizards, including Mad-Eye Moody. The assembly whisks Harry off to Number 12, Grimmauld Place, London, the home of Harry's godfather, Sirius Black. Number 12, Grimmauld Place is also serving as the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix and is only accessible to those who have been given is location by the secret keeper, Albus Dumbledore. Harry's best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, are already at the house. They explain that the Order of the Phoenix is a group of witches and wizards led by Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore. The group is dedicated to fighting the evil Lord Voldemort and his loyal followers known as the Death Eaters. The Order is forced to operate in secrecy, outside of the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Magic, because the dense and corrupt Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge refuses to believe that Lord Voldemort has returned. In addition, Harry learns that he and Dumbledore have been made victims of a ministry smear campaign aimed at discrediting them and their beliefs about Voldemort's return.
Because of his use of magic, Harry's fate is to be determined at a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Magic, which turns out to be a show trial. With Dumbledore's help, Harry is cleared by the Wizengamot and permitted to return to Hogwarts.
Reunited with his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, Harry returns to Hogwarts and learns that Dolores Umbridge, one of Fudge's employees, will be his new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. The Sorting Hat, which traditionally sorts all new students into one of four houses, cautions the students against becoming too internally divided. Meanwhile, due to the Ministry's smear campaign, Harry is the subject of unwanted gossip from the student body at large, and a number of people turn against him including fellow Gryffindor, Seamus Finnigan. Professor Umbridge and Harry soon clash, as she, like Fudge, refuses to believe that Voldemort has returned. She punishes Harry when he points out Voldemort's return by forcing him to write "I must not tell lies" with a special quill that carves the phrase into the back of his hand as he etches it on paper.
Umbridge refuses to teach her students how to perform defensive spells. Before long, Fudge appoints her to the new position of High Inquisitor of Hogwarts, giving her the authority to inspect all faculty members and evaluate their skills. In desperation, Harry, Hermione, and Ron form their own Defense Against the Dark Arts group called Dumbledore's Army, or "D.A". Twenty-five other students sign up, including several of Harry's friends, as well as the eccentric Luna Lovegood and Cho Chang, whom Harry fancies. The club meets as often as possible in the Room of Requirement to learn and practice Defense spells at Harry's direction, and its members quickly progress.
One night, Harry dreams that a large snake (which turns out to be Voldemort's pet snake, Nagini) attacks Ron's father. Harry wakes up horrified, and Professor McGonagall takes him to Dumbledore immediately. Dumbledore uses the portraits on the walls of his office to raise an alert, and Mr. Weasley, who has actually been attacked, is promptly rescued by two members of the Order. The Weasley family, accompanied by Harry and the Order, visit Arthur Weasley in St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. While they are there Harry, Ron, and Hermione come across Neville and his grandmother who are visiting Neville's parents. Frank and Alice Longbottom had been tortured out of their minds by Bellatrix Lestrange.
Afterwards, Dumbledore demands that Harry take Occlumency lessons with Professor Snape for the purpose of protecting his mind against further invasions by Lord Voldemort. During the lessons, Harry learns that a corridor he has been repeatedly visiting in his dreams is part of the Department of Mysteries. Harry is unsuccessful at Occlumency because he has such difficulty clearing his mind, which makes closing his mind off to all outside influence impossible. In addition, he secretly wants to keep having visions out of curiosity. Meanwhile, his scar still burns horribly every time Voldemort experiences a powerful emotion.
The D.A. continues to meet regularly, and Harry's peers show great improvement until they are caught by Umbridge whose informant was Cho's friend Marietta Edgecomb. Dumbledore takes full responsibility for the group, yet evades capture, and Umbridge takes over his position as Headmaster. Shortly afterwards, Harry ends up viewing a memory of Snape's during an Occlumency lesson; the memory shows Harry's father, James, and Sirius bullying Snape back in their school days. Harry wishes desperately to contact Sirius to talk about his father, but Umbridge has been inspecting all owl posts and patrolling the fires of Hogwarts, preventing communication via the Floo Network. Ron's brothers, Fred and George Weasley agree to distract Umbridge so that Harry can use her fireplace to talk to Sirius, who clears up Harry's doubts about his father. Fred and George pull a spectacular prank and leave Hogwarts immediately afterwards, moving to London to open a joke shop in the wizarding town of Diagon Alley using the money Harry won the previous year in the Triwizard Tournament.
The students begin taking their O.W.L. exams. Harry has another vision, this time about Sirius being held captive and tortured by Voldemort. Horrified, Harry becomes determined to save him. Hermione warns Harry that Voldemort may be deliberately trying to lure Harry to the Department of Mysteries, but Harry is too concerned about Sirius to pay heed. Harry sneaks into Umbridge's office and, using her fireplace, transports himself to 12, Grimmauld Place to look for Sirius. Kreacher, the House of Black's house elf, tells Harry that Sirius is at the Ministry of Magic. Harry returns to Hogwarts, when he is pulled back through the fire by Umbridge to find that he and his friends have been caught in Umbridge's office. Ron, Luna, Ginny, and Neville, who tried to distract Umbridge so that Harry could use her fireplace, have all been seized by Slytherins and gagged. Hermione and Harry convince Umbridge to follow them into the forest, where they claim to be hiding a weapon for Dumbledore.
Once in the forest, Umbridge provokes the resident herd of centaurs by insulting them and is taken captive. Harry and his friends use the school's thestrals, winged skeletal horses, to fly to the Ministry. Once they arrive, Harry cannot find Sirius and realises that Hermione was right. Harry also sees that one of the glass spheres in the Department of Mysteries has his and Voldemort's names on it. Harry grabs the sphere, and Death Eaters led by Lucius Malfoy surround to attack, demanding that Harry hand over the prophecy. Employing all of their Defence skills, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, and Neville have moderate success fighting the Death Eaters, but they are ultimately helped enormously by the arrival of several members of the Order, including Dumbledore. In the midst of the fight, Harry drops the glass sphere and it shatters. Sirius is killed by his own cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, when she blasts him into the veil of death.
Harry is blind with grief and wants to avenge his godfather. He follows Bellatrix, but is met by Voldemort at the fountain. Dumbledore appears shortly after Voldemort and the two engage in an intense duel. Voldemort fights Dumbledore to stalemate, then possesses Harry in an attempt to get Dumbledore to kill him. Dumbledore does not do so and Voldemort and Lestrange escape just as Fudge appears at the Ministry, finally faced with incontrovertible evidence that the Dark Lord has returned.
Dumbledore sends Harry back to school. Harry has a breakdown, screaming that "he's had enough" of all the pain and anguish and death and destruction. Once Harry calms down, Dumbledore explains that the sphere was a prophecy which stated that Harry has a power that Voldemort will never know: the power of love, given to him by his mother's sacrifice fifteen years earlier. The prophecy goes on to claim that neither Harry nor Voldemort can live while the other survives. Dumbledore takes this opportunity to tell Harry why he must spend his summers with the Dursleys in Little Whinging: because Harry's mother died to save him, he is blessed with her love, a blessing that can be sealed only by blood. Harry's Aunt Petunia, his mother's sister, makes that bond complete by taking Harry into her home. As long as he still calls Little Whinging home, Harry is safe.
At the end of the year, members of Order warn the Dursleys that they will have to answer to the Order should they mistreat Harry, who returns to the Dursleys for the summer.



 US cover of Order of the Phoenix.
Publication and release[edit]
Potter fans waited three years between the releases of the fourth and fifth books.[2][3] Before the release of the fifth book, 200 million copies of the first four books had already been sold and translated into 55 languages in 200 countries.[4] As the series was already a global phenomenon, the book forged new pre-order records, with thousands of people queuing outside book stores on 20 June 2003 to secure their copy at midnight.[4] Despite the security, thousands of copies were stolen from an Earlestown, Merseyside warehouse on 15 June 2003.[5]
Critical response[edit]
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was met with mostly positive reviews, and received several awards. The book was cited as an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults and as an American Library Association Notable Book, both in 2004.[6][7] It also received the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio 2004 Gold Medal along with several other awards.[8]
The novel was also well received by critics. Rowling was praised for her imagination by USA Today writer Deirdre Donahue.[9] Most of the negative reviewers were concerned with the violence contained in the novel and with morality issues occurring throughout the book.[10]
The New York Times writer John Leonard praised the novel, saying "The Order of the Phoenix starts slow, gathers speed and then skateboards, with somersaults, to its furious conclusion....As Harry gets older, Rowling gets better."[11] However, he also criticises "the one-note Draco Malfoy" and the predictable Lord Voldemort.[11] Another review by Julie Smithouser, of the Christian-right group Focus on the Family, said the book was, "Likely to be considered the weakest book in the series, Phoenix does feel less oppressive than the two most previous novels."[10] Smithouser's main criticism was that the book was not moral. Harry lies to authority to escape punishment, and that, at times, the violence is too "gruesome and graphic."[10]
Prequels and sequels[edit]
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth book in the Harry Potter series.[2] The first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was first published by Bloomsbury in 1997 with an initial print-run of 500 copies in hardback, three hundred of which were distributed to libraries. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is also the longest book from the series, yet the second shortest film at 2 hours and 18 minutes.[12] By the end of 1997 , the UK edition won a National Book Award and a gold medal in the 9 to 11 year-olds category of the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize.[13][14][15] Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was published a year later in the UK on 8 July 1999 and in the US on 8 September 1999.[14][15] Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published on 8 July 2000  simultaneously by Bloomsbury and Scholastic.[16]
After the publishing of Order of the Phoenix, the sixth book of the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was published on 16 July 2005, and sold 9 million copies in the first 24 hours of its worldwide release.[1][17] The seventh and final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published 21 July 2007.[18] The book sold 11 million copies within 24 hours of its release: 2.7 million copies in the UK and 8.3 million in the US.[17]
Adaptations[edit]
Film[edit]
Main article: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)
In 2007, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released in a film version directed by David Yates and written by Michael Goldenberg. The film was produced by David Heyman's company, Heyday Films, alongside David Barron. The budget was reportedly between £75 and 100 million (US$150–200 million),[19][20] and it became the unadjusted eleventh-highest grossing film of all time, and a critical and commercial success.[21] The film opened to a worldwide 5-day opening of $333 million, third all-time, and grossed $938.377.000 million total, the second to Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End for the greatest total of 2007.[22][23]
Video games[edit]
Main article: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (video game)
A video game adaptation of the book and film versions of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was made for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PSP, Nintendo DS, Wii, Game Boy Advance and Mac OS X.[24] It was released on 25 June 2007 in the U.S., 28 June 2007 in Australia and 29 June 2007 in the UK and Europe for PlayStation 3, PSP, PlayStation 2, Windows and the 3 July 2007 for most other platforms.[25] The games were published by Electronic Arts.[26]
The book is also depicted in the 2011 video game Lego Harry Potter: Years 5–7.
Translations[edit]
Main article: Harry Potter in translation
The first official foreign translation of the book appeared in Vietnamese on 21 July 2003, when the first of twenty-two instalments was released. The first official European translation appeared in Serbia and Montenegro in Serbian, by the official publisher Narodna Knjiga, in early September 2003. Other translations appeared later (e.g. in November 2003 in Dutch and German). The English-language version has topped the best-seller list in France, while in Germany and the Netherlands an unofficial distributed translation process has been started on the Internet.[27]
See also[edit]
Book icon Book: Harry Potter


Portal icon Harry Potter portal
Religious debates over the Harry Potter series
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b "July date for Harry Potter book". BBC. 21 December 2004. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
2.^ Jump up to: a b Ross, Shmuel; Mark Zurlo (2000-2009). "Harry Potter Timeline: 2000 to the Present". Pearson Education, publishing as Infoplease. Retrieved 11 July 2009.
3.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter Books". MuggleNet.com. 1999–2009. Retrieved 29 May 2009.
4.^ Jump up to: a b "Potter-mania sweeps bookstores". CNN. 30 June 2003. Retrieved 29 May 2009.
5.Jump up ^ "Thousands of Potter books stolen". BBC. 17 June 2003. Retrieved 29 May 2009.
6.Jump up ^ "Best Books for Young Adults Annotated List 2004". American Library Association. 2004. Archived from the original on 14 April 2009. Retrieved 30 May 2009.
7.Jump up ^ "2004 Notable Children's Books". American Library Association. 2009. Retrieved 30 May 2009.[dead link]
8.Jump up ^ Levine, Arthur (2001–2005). "Awards". Arthur A. Levine Books. Retrieved 30 May 2009.
9.Jump up ^ Donahue, Deirdre (25 June 2003). "Rich characters, magical prose elevate 'Phoenix'". USA Today. Retrieved 31 May 2009.
10.^ Jump up to: a b c Smithouser, Julie (2009). "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". Focus on the Family. Archived from the original on 8 May 2006. Retrieved 31 May 2009.
11.^ Jump up to: a b Leonard, John (13 July 2003). "Nobody Expects the Inquisition". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 May 2009.
12.Jump up ^ Elisco, Lester (2000-2009). "The Phenomenon of Harry Potter". TomFolio.com. Retrieved 22 January 2009.
13.Jump up ^ Knapp, N.F. (2003). "In Defense of Harry Potter: An Apologia". School Libraries Worldwide (International Association of School Librarianship) 9 (1): 78–91. Retrieved 14 May 2009.
14.^ Jump up to: a b "A Potter timeline for muggles". Toronto Star. 14 July 2007. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
15.^ Jump up to: a b "Harry Potter: Meet J.K. Rowling". Scholastic Inc. Archived from the original on 22 March 2011. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
16.Jump up ^ "Speed-reading after lights out". London: Guardian News and Media Limited. 19 July 2000. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
17.^ Jump up to: a b "Harry Potter finale sales hit 11 m". BBC News. 23 July 2007. Retrieved 21 August 2008.
18.Jump up ^ "Rowling unveils last Potter date". BBC. 1 February 2007. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
19.Jump up ^ Cornwell, Tim (24 January 2007). "Oscars signal boom (except for Scots)". The Scotsman (UK). Retrieved 24 January 2007.
20.Jump up ^ Haun, Harry (20 June 2007). "Harry the Fifth". Film Journal International. Archived from the original on 4 August 2008. Retrieved 26 June 2007.
21.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 5 February 2009.
22.Jump up ^ "Worldwide Openings". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 6 March 2008.
23.Jump up ^ "2007 Worldwide Grosses". Box Office Mojo. 6 March 2008.
24.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: The Videogame". Electronic Arts Inc. 2007. Archived from the original on 19 January 2012. Retrieved 11 July 2009.
25.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter: Phoenix". CBS Interactive Inc. 2009. Retrieved 10 June 2009.
26.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: The Video Game". Electronic Arts Inc. 2009. Retrieved 30 May 2009.
27.Jump up ^ "Harry auf Deutsch: Projekt-Übersicht der Harry Potter Übersetzung(en)". Retrieved 10 July 2011.
External links[edit]
 The Wikibook Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter has a page on the topic of: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
 Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on Harry Potter Wiki, an external wiki

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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

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"Half-Blood Prince" redirects here. For other uses, see Half-Blood Prince (disambiguation).
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Harry Potter books
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.jpg
Author
J. K. Rowling
Illustrators
Jason Cockcroft (UK)
Mary GrandPré (US)
Genre
Fantasy
Publishers
Bloomsbury (UK)
Arthur A. Levine/
Scholastic (US)
Raincoast (Canada)
Released
16 July 2005
Book no.
Six
Sales
65 million.[1]
Story timeline
1 August 1996 – 10 June 1997
Chapters
30
Pages
607 (UK)
 652 (US)
ISBN
0-7475-8108-8
Preceded by
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Followed by
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth and penultimate novel in the Harry Potter series by British author J. K. Rowling. Set during protagonist Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts, the novel explores the past of Harry's nemesis, Lord Voldemort, and Harry's preparations for the final battle alongside his headmaster and mentor Albus Dumbledore.
The book was published in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury and in the United States by Scholastic on 16 July 2005, as well as in several other countries. It sold nine million copies in the first 24 hours after its release, a record at the time which was eventually broken by its sequel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. There were many controversies before and after it was published, including the right to read the copies delivered prior to the release date in Canada. Reception to the novel was generally positive and it won several awards and honours, including the 2006 British Book of the Year award.
Reviewers noted that the book took on a darker tone than its predecessors, though it did contain humour. Some considered the main themes to be love and death, and trust and redemption. The character development of Harry and several other teenage characters was also remarked upon.
The film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released 15 July 2009 by Warner Bros.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Synopsis
2 Development 2.1 Franchise
2.2 Background
3 Controversies 3.1 Right-to-read controversy
4 Style and themes
5 Publication and reception 5.1 Critical reception
5.2 Awards and honours
5.3 Sales
6 Translations
7 Editions
8 Film adaptation
9 References
10 External links
Synopsis[edit]
Severus Snape, a member of Dumbledore's anti-Voldemort Order of the Phoenix but formerly one of Voldemort's Death Eaters, meets with Narcissa Malfoy, mother of Harry Potter's school rival Draco. Bellatrix, who is Narcissa's sister and is Voldemort's most loyal and faithful servant is untrusting of Snape and believes his true intentions are not entirely in favor of the Dark Lord's plans. She insists that Snape take part in the Unbreakable Vow, which she believes he will not accept, but when he agrees, this prompts Bellatrix to accept his determination to protect the young Draco. Snape makes the Unbreakable Vow to Narcissa, promising to assist and protect Draco.
Meanwhile, Dumbledore collects Harry from his aunt and uncle's house giving them a not so subtle threat that Harry is to be of age soon and soon will not be needing their home but for one more year and their past actions have not gone unnoticed. He then takes Harry to the home of Horace Slughorn, former Potions teacher at Hogwarts. Dumbledore tries to persuade a reluctant Slughorn to return to teaching and finally succeeds. Later, when shopping for schoolbooks, Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger follow Draco Malfoy to Dark Arts supplier Borgin and Burkes, where they overhear Draco insisting that the store-owner fix an unknown object. Harry is instantly suspicious of Draco, whom he believes to be a Death Eater like his father. While on the Hogwart's Express, Harry senses Draco is up to no good. He uses his Invisibility cloak to sneak into the back compartment where Draco is bragging to his peers that he may not attend his final year, lamenting that he has learned all he needs to learn and that big changes are coming. While talking, he notices a quick glimpse of Harry sneaking up onto the overhead luggage rack. After the train arrives at Hogwart's, Draco implores his friends to go on ahead and he will catch up with them later. He uses a stunning spell to render Harry paralyzed. He begins to antagonize Harry about the suffering he has caused Draco's father at the hands of The Dark Lord. He proceeds to break Harry's nose and covers him in the Invisibility Cloak. Draco knows the train will take Harry back to London undiscovered and he will miss the first night of term. After Draco departs, Nymphadora Tonks finds Harry and reverses the spell, helping Harry to the gates of Hogwart's, where they are both interrogated by Professor Snape, but finally allowed to enter the safety of the school. The students return to school, where Dumbledore announces that Snape, the previous Potions teacher, will be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts, while Slughorn will resume his post as Potions teacher. This allows Harry to continue with a Potions course, in which he now excels, thanks mainly due to having received a used Potions textbook that once belonged to someone named "The Half-Blood Prince", which is heavily annotated.
Harry falls in love with Ron's sister Ginny, and Ron and his girlfriend Lavender Brown break up, to Hermione's delight. Harry spends much of his time following Draco Malfoy for any proof of suspicious actions, though he often cannot find him on his Marauder's Map, a magical map of Hogwarts. Ron and Hermione do not believe Harry should have any reason to be suspicious of Draco. Harry disagrees. He realises that when Draco is not on the map, he is using the Room of Requirement on the seventh floor of Hogwarts, which transforms into whatever its user needs. Harry is unable to gain access to the room unless he needs the room.
Believing that Harry needs to learn Voldemort's past to gain advantage in a foretold fight, Dumbledore schedules regular meetings with Harry in which they use Dumbledore's Pensieve to look at memories of those who have had direct contact with Voldemort. Harry learns about Voldemort's family and his evolution into a psychopath obsessed with power and blood purity. Harry eventually succeeds in retrieving one of Slughorn's memories about how he revealed the secrets about splitting one's soul and hiding it in several objects called Horcruxes. Dumbledore explains that two of these have already been destroyed but that others remain. He suspects three of those to be objects belonging to three of the Hogwarts founders (one for each except Gryffindor), and the last one to reside in Voldemort's snake.
Harry and Dumbledore leave Hogwarts to fetch and destroy one of the Horcruxes. They journey into a cave important to Voldemort's youth that Dumbledore senses is protected with magic. They reach the basin where the purported Horcrux is hidden underneath a potion. Dumbledore drinks the potion and Harry fights off Voldemort's Inferi, an army of re-animated corpses. They take the Horcrux, Slytherin's locket, and return to Hogwarts as quickly as possible. Dumbledore is very weak, and when they reach Hogsmeade they can see the Dark Mark, Voldemort's symbol, visible above the astronomy tower.
When they arrive at the tower, Dumbledore uses his magic to freeze Harry in place while Harry remains hidden by his cloak of invisibility. When Draco Malfoy arrives, he disarms and threatens to kill Dumbledore, acting on his mission from Voldemort. Dumbledore tries to stall Draco by telling him he is not a killer, but Snape bursts into the tower and kills Dumbledore. Because of Dumbledore's death, his spell on Harry is broken and Harry rushes after Snape to avenge Dumbledore's death. Snape reveals that he is the Half-Blood Prince and manages to escape. Later, Harry finds out that the locket that he and Dumbledore retrieved is not the real Horcrux; containing only a note from someone named "R. A. B".
After Dumbledore's funeral, Hermione explains to Harry that Snape was called the Half-Blood Prince because he had a Muggle father and a magical mother (whose maiden name was Prince). Harry is devastated to think that he trusted and took help from the man who would turn out to be Dumbledore's murderer. He tells his friends that he will not be returning to Hogwarts next year and will instead search out and kill Voldemort by destroying all of the Horcruxes. Ron and Hermione vow to join him.
Development[edit]
Franchise[edit]
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth book in the Harry Potter series.[2] The first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was first published by Bloomsbury in 1997, with an initial print-run of 500 copies in hardback, 300 of which were distributed to libraries.[3] By the end of 1997, the UK edition won a National Book Award and a gold medal in the 9- to 11-year-olds category of the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize.[4] The second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was originally published in the UK on 2 July 1998 and in the US on 2 June 1999.[5][6] Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was then published a year later in the UK on 8 July 1999 and in the US on 8 September 1999.[5][6] Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published on 8 July 2000 at the same time by Bloomsbury and Scholastic.[7] Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the longest novel in the Harry Potter series, was released 21 June 2003.[8] After the publishing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the seventh and final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was released 21 July 2007.[9] The book sold 11 million copies within 24 hours of its release: 2.7 million copies in the UK and 8.3 million in the US.[10]
Background[edit]

J. K. Rowling, author of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, crouches. She is wearing a blue dress under a grey jacket.

 Rowling spent years planning Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
Rowling stated that she had Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince "planned for years", but she spent two months going over her plan before she began writing seriously. This was a lesson learned after she did not check the plan for Goblet of Fire and had to rewrite a third of the book.[11] She started writing the book before her second child, David, was born, but she took a break to care for him.[12] The first chapter, "The Other Minister", which features the meeting between the Muggle Prime Minister, the Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge, and his successor, Rufus Scrimgeour, was a concept Rowling tried to start in Philosopher's Stone, Prisoner of Azkaban, and Order of the Phoenix, but she found "it finally works" in Half-Blood Prince.[13] She stated that she was "seriously upset" writing the end of the book, although Goblet of Fire was the hardest to write.[14] When asked if she liked the book, she responded, "I like it better than I liked 'Goblet', 'Phoenix' or 'Chamber' when I finished them. Book six does what I wanted it to do and even if nobody else likes it (and some won't), I know it will remain one of my favourites of the series. Ultimately you have to please yourself before you please anyone else!"[15]
Rowling revealed the title of Half-Blood Prince on her website on 29 June 2004.[16][17] This was the title she had once considered for the second book, Chamber of Secrets, though she decided that the information disclosed belonged better in book six.[17] On 21 December 2004, she announced she had finished writing it, along with the release date of 16 July.[18][19] Bloomsbury unveiled the cover on 8 March 2005.[20]
Controversies[edit]
The record-breaking publication of Half-Blood Prince was accompanied by controversy. In May 2005, bookmakers in the UK suspended bets on which main character would die in the book amid fears of insider knowledge. A number of high value bets were made on the death of Albus Dumbledore, many coming from the town of Bungay where, it was believed, the books were being printed at the time. Betting was later reopened.[21] Additionally, in response to Greenpeace's campaign on using forest friendly paper for big-name authors, Bloomsbury published the book on 30% recycled paper.[22]
Right-to-read controversy[edit]
In early July 2005, a Real Canadian Superstore in Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada, accidentally sold fourteen copies of The Half-Blood Prince before the authorised release date. The Canadian publisher, Raincoast Books, obtained an injunction from the Supreme Court of British Columbia prohibiting the purchasers from reading the books before the official release date or from discussing the contents.[23] Purchasers were offered a Harry Potter T-shirt and an autographed copy of the book if they returned their copies before 16 July.[23]
On 15 July, less than twelve hours before the book went on sale in the Eastern time zone, Raincoast warned The Globe and Mail newspaper that publishing a review from a Canada-based writer at midnight, as the paper had promised, would be seen as a violation of the trade secret injunction. The injunction sparked a number of news articles alleging that the injunction had restricted fundamental rights. Canadian law professor Michael Geist posted commentary on his blog;[24] Richard Stallman called for a boycott, requesting the publisher issue an apology.[25] The Globe and Mail published a review from two UK-based writers in its 16 July edition and posted the Canadian writer's review on its website at 9:00 that morning.[26] Commentary was also provided on the Raincoast website.[27]
Style and themes[edit]
Some reviewers noted that Half-Blood Prince contained a darker tone than the previous Potter novels. The Christian Science Monitor's reviewer Yvonne Zipp considered the first half to contain a lighter tone to soften the unhappy ending.[28] The Boston Globe reviewer Liz Rosenberg wrote, "lightness [is] slimmer than ever in this darkening series...[there is] a new charge of gloom and darkness. I felt depressed by the time I was two-thirds of the way through". She also compared the setting to Charles Dickens's depictions of London, as it was "brooding, broken, gold-lit, as living character as any other".[29] Christopher Paolini called the darker tone "disquieting" because it was so different from the earlier books.[30] Liesl Schillinger, a contributor to The New York Times book review, also noted that Half-Blood Prince was "far darker" but "leavened with humor, romance and snappy dialogue". She suggested a connection to the 11 September attacks, as the later, darker novels were written after that event.[31] David Kipen, a critic of the San Francisco Chronicle considered the "darkness as a sign of our paranoid times" and singled out curfews and searches that were part of the tightened security at Hogwarts, as a resemblance to our world.[32]
Julia Keller, a critic for the Chicago Tribune, highlighted the humour found in the novel and claimed it to be the success of the Harry Potter saga. She acknowledged that "the books are dark and scary in places" but "no darkness in Half-Blood Prince...is so immense that it cannot be rescued by a snicker or a smirk." She considered that Rowling was suggesting that difficult times could be worked through with imagination, hope, and humour, and compared this concept to works such as Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time and Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows.[33]
Rosenberg wrote that the two main themes of Half-Blood Prince were love and death and praised Rowling's "affirmation of their central position in human lives". She considered love to be represented in several forms: the love of parent to child, teacher to student, and the romances that developed between the characters.[29] Zipp noted trust and redemption to be themes promising to continue in the final book, which she thought "would add a greater layer of nuance and complexity to some characters who could sorely use it."[28] Deepti Hajela also pointed out Harry's character development, that he was "no longer a boy wizard; he's a young man, determined to seek out and face a young man's challenges".[34] Paolini had similar views, claiming, "the children have changed...they act like real teenagers."[30]
Publication and reception[edit]



 US cover of Half-Blood Prince.
Critical reception[edit]
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince received generally positive reviews. Liesl Schillinger of The New York Times praised the novel's various themes and suspenseful ending. However, she considered Rowling's gift "not so much for language as for characterisation and plotting".[31] Kirkus Reviews said it "will leave readers pleased, amused, excited, scared, infuriated, delighted, sad, surprised, thoughtful and likely wondering where Voldemort has got to, since he appears only in flashbacks". They considered Rowling's "wry wit" to turn into "outright merriment", but called the climax "tragic, but not uncomfortably shocking".[35] Yvonne Zipp of The Christian Science Monitor praised the way Rowling evolved Harry into a teenager and how the plot threads found as far back as Chamber of Secrets came into play. On the other hand, she noted that it "gets a little exposition-heavy in spots" and older readers may have seen the ending coming.[28]
Christopher Paolini, writing for Entertainment Weekly, pointed out that the change of tone was "disquieting" as the world evolved, and praised the character development, though he considered Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire the best.[30] The Boston Globe correspondent Liz Rosenberg wrote, "The book bears the mark of genius on every page" and praised the imagery and darker tone of the book, considering that the series could be crossing over from fantasy to horror.[29] The Associated Press writer Deepti Hajela praised the newfound emotional tones and ageing Harry to the point where "younger fans may find [the series] has grown up too much".[34] Emily Green, a staff writer of the Los Angeles Times, was generally positive about the book but was concerned whether young children could handle the material.[36] Cultural critic Julia Keller of the Chicago Tribune called it the "most eloquent and substantial addition to the series thus far" and considered the key to the success of the Potter novels to be humour.[33]
Awards and honours[edit]
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has won several awards, including the 2006 British Book of the Year Award[37] and the 2006 Royal Mail Award for Scottish Children's Books for ages 8–12 in its native United Kingdom.[38] In the United States, the American Library Association listed it among its 2006 Best Books for Young Adults.[39] It won both the 2005 reader-voted Quill Awards for Best Book of the Year and Best Children's Book.[40][41] It also won the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Seal for notable book.[42]
Sales[edit]



Potter fans wait in lines outside a Borders in Newark, Delaware for the midnight release of the book
Before publication, 1.4 million advanced orders were placed for Half-Blood Prince on Amazon.com, breaking the record held by the previous novel, Order of the Phoenix, with 1.3 million.[43] The initial print run for Half-Blood Prince was a record-breaking 10.8 million.[44] Within the first 24 hours of release, the book sold 9 million copies worldwide, 2 million in the UK and about 6.9 million in the U.S.,[45] which prompted Scholastic to rush an additional 2.7 million copies into print.[46] Within the first nine weeks of publication, 11 million copies of the U.S. edition were reported to have been sold.[47] The U.S. audiobook, read by Jim Dale, set sales records with 165,000 sold over two days, besting the adaptation of Order of the Phoenix by twenty percent.[48]
Translations[edit]
See also: Harry Potter in translation
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was published simultaneously in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.[49] Along with the rest of the books in the Harry Potter series, it was eventually translated into 67 languages.[50] However, because of high security surrounding the manuscript, translators did not get to start on translating Half-Blood Prince until its English release date, and the earliest were not expected to be released until the fall of 2005.[51] In Germany, a group of "hobby translators" translated the book via Internet in less than two days after release, far before German translator Klaus Fritz could translate and publish the book.[52]
Editions[edit]



 Reproductions of artwork by Mary GrandPré (pictured) were available with the Scholastic Deluxe Edition.
Since its wide hardcover release on 16 July 2005, Half-Blood Prince was released as a paperback on 23 June 2006 in the UK.[53] Two days later on 25 July, the paperback edition was released in Canada[54] and the U.S., where it had an initial print run of 2 million copies.[55] To celebrate the release of the American paperback edition, Scholastic held a six-week sweepstakes event in which participants in an online poll were entered to win prizes.[56] Simultaneous to the original hardcover release was the UK adult edition, featuring a new cover,[57] and which was also released as a paperback on 23 June.[58] Also released on 16 July was the Scholastic "Deluxe Edition", which featured reproductions of Mary Grandpré's artwork and had a print run of about 100,000 copies.[59] Bloomsbury later released a paperback "Special Edition" on 6 July 2009[60] and a "Signature Edition" paperback on 1 November 2010.[61]
Film adaptation[edit]
Main article: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (film)
The film adaptation of the sixth book was originally scheduled to be released on 21 November 2008, but was changed to 15 July 2009.[62][63] Directed by David Yates, the screenplay was adapted by Steve Kloves and produced by David Heyman and David Barron.[64] The film grossed over $934 million worldwide,[65] which made it the second-highest grossing film of 2009 worldwide[66] and the fifteenth highest of all time.[67] Additionally, Half-Blood Prince gained an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography.[68][69]
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Glenday, Craig, ed. (2008). Guinness World Records 2009. Guinness World Records. ISBN 1-904994-37-7.
2.Jump up ^ "Book 6 – The Half-Blood Prince". CBBC Newsround. 10 July 2007. Retrieved 23 March 2011.
3.Jump up ^ Elisco, Lester (2000–2009). "The Phenomenon of Harry Potter". TomFolio.com. Retrieved 22 January 2009.
4.Jump up ^ Knapp, N.F. (2003). "In Defense of Harry Potter: An Apologia". School Libraries Worldwide (International Association of School Librarianship) 9 (1): 78–91. Retrieved 14 May 2009.
5.^ Jump up to: a b "A Potter timeline for muggles". Toronto Star. 14 July 2007. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
6.^ Jump up to: a b "Harry Potter: Meet J.K. Rowling". Scholastic Inc. Archived from the original on 22 March 2011. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
7.Jump up ^ "Speed-reading after lights out". The Guardian (London: Guardian News and Media Limited). 19 July 2000. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
8.Jump up ^ "Everything you might want to know". J.K. Rowling Official Site. Archived from the original on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 14 August 2011.
9.Jump up ^ "Rowling unveils last Potter date". BBC. 1 February 2007. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
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11.Jump up ^ "World Book Day Webchat, March 2004". Bloomsbury. March 2004. Retrieved 16 June 2011.
12.Jump up ^ Rowling, J.K. (15 March 2004). "Progress on Book Six". J.K. Rowling Official Site. Archived from the original on 26 December 2010. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
13.Jump up ^ Rowling, J.K. "The Opening Chapter of Book Six". J.K. Rowling Official Site. Archived from the original on 4 February 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
14.Jump up ^ "Read the FULL J.K. Rowling interview". CBBC Newsround. 18 July 2005. Retrieved 8 May 2011.
15.Jump up ^ Rowling, J.K. "Do you like 'Half-Blood Prince'?". J.K. Rowling Official Site. Archived from the original on 26 December 2010. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
16.Jump up ^ Crown, Sarah (29 June 2004). "Revealed: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". The Guardian (UK). Retrieved 21 March 2011.
17.^ Jump up to: a b Rowling, J.K. (29 June 2004). "Title of Book Six: The Truth". J.K. Rowling Official Site. Archived from the original on 26 December 2010. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
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22.Jump up ^ Pauli, Michelle (3 March 2005). "Praise for 'forest friendly' Potter". The Guardian (UK). Retrieved 28 March 2011.
23.^ Jump up to: a b Malvern, Jack; Cleroux, Richard (13 July 2005). "Reading ban on leaked Harry Potter". The Times (London). Retrieved 4 May 2010.
24.Jump up ^ Geist, Michael (12 July 2005). "The Harry Potter Injunction". Retrieved 14 February 2011.
25.Jump up ^ Stallman, Richard. "Don't Buy Harry Potter Books". Retrieved 14 February 2011.
26.Jump up ^ "Much Ado As Harry Potter Hits the Shelves". The Globe and Mail (Toronto). 16 July 2005. Archived from the original on 31 March 2009. Retrieved 28 March 2011.(subscription required)
27.Jump up ^ "Important Notice: Raincoast Books". Raincoast.com. Archived from the original on 24 October 2005. Retrieved 24 April 2007.
28.^ Jump up to: a b c Zipp, Yvonne (18 July 2005). "Classic Book Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 12 February 2011.
29.^ Jump up to: a b c Rosenberg, Liz (18 July 2005). "'Prince' shines amid growing darkness". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
30.^ Jump up to: a b c Paolini, Christopher (20 July 2005). "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 12 February 2011.
31.^ Jump up to: a b Schillinger, Liesl (31 July 2005). "'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince': Her Dark Materials". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 February 2011.
32.Jump up ^ Kipen, David (17 July 2005). "Book Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". The San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on 31 December 2010. Retrieved 23 June 2011.
33.^ Jump up to: a b Keller, Julia (17 July 2005). "Tragic? Yes, but humor triumphs". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 26 June 2011.
34.^ Jump up to: a b Hajela, Deepti (18 July 2005). "Emotional twists come with a grown-up Harry". The Seattle Times. Associated Press. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
35.Jump up ^ "'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince': The Kirkus Review". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 12 February 2011.
36.Jump up ^ Green, Emily (16 July 2005). "Harry's back, and children must be brave". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 23 June 2011.
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38.Jump up ^ "Previous Winners and Shortlisted Books". Scottish Book Trust. 2006. Retrieved 23 March 2011.
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47.Jump up ^ "11 million Copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Sold in the First Nine Weeks" (Press release). New York: Scholastic. 21 September 2005. Retrieved 17 June 2011.
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49.Jump up ^ "Potter book six web scam foiled". CBBC Newsround. 11 January 2005. Retrieved 23 March 2011.
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52.Jump up ^ Diver, Krysia (1 August 2005). "Germans in a hurry for Harry". The Guardian (UK). Retrieved 22 March 2011.
53.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Paperback)". Amazon.co.uk. ASIN 0747584680. Missing or empty |url= (help)
54.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Available in Paperback". Raincoast Books. 24 July 2006. Retrieved 17 June 2011.
55.Jump up ^ "J.K. Rowling's Phenomenal Bestseller Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince to Be Released in Paperback on July 25, 2006" (Press release). New York: Scholastic. 18 January 2006. Retrieved 17 June 2011.
56.Jump up ^ "Scholastic Kicks-Off Harry Potter 'Wednesdays' Sweepstakes to Win Harry Potter iPods(R) and Copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince With Bookplates Signed by J.K. Rowling" (Press release). New York: Scholastic. 23 February 2006. Retrieved 17 February 2011.
57.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Adult Edition". Amazon.co.uk. ASIN 074758110. Missing or empty |url= (help)
58.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Adult Edition (Paperback)". Amazon.co.uk. ASIN 0747584664. Missing or empty |url= (help)
59.Jump up ^ "Scholastic Releases Exclusive Artwork for Deluxe Edition of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (Press release). New York: Scholastic. 11 May 2005. Retrieved 25 March 2011.
60.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Special Edition (Paperback)". Amazon.co.uk. ASIN 0747598460. Missing or empty |url= (help)
61.Jump up ^ Allen, Katie (30 March 2010). "Bloomsbury Repackages Harry Potter". TheBookseller.com. Retrieved 25 March 2011.
62.Jump up ^ Eng, Joyce (15 April 2005). "Coming Sooner: Harry Potter Changes Release Date". TVGuide. Retrieved 15 April 2009.
63.Jump up ^ Child, Ben (15 August 2008). "Harry Potter film delayed eight months". The Guardian (UK). Retrieved 22 March 2011.
64.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince full production credits". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 March 2011.
65.Jump up ^ "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 31 July 2011.
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

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Harry Potter books
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
A black-haired young man with round eyeglasses is falling forward along with a red-haired young man and a young woman with light brown hair knocking over cauldrons with gold inside them. Each of them has an apparently blushed face. In the background a goblin's arm is holding a sword. The top of the cover says: HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, while the bottom of the cover says: J. K. ROWLING, BLOOMSBURY.
Author
J. K. Rowling
Illustrators
Jason Cockcroft (UK)
Mary GrandPré (US)
Genre
Fantasy
Publishers
Bloomsbury (UK)
Arthur A. Levine/
Scholastic (US)
Raincoast (Canada)
Released
21 July 2007
Book no.
Seven
Sales
44 million (worldwide)[1]
Story timeline
July 1997–2 May 1998
 1 September 2017
Chapters
37 (counting the epilogue)
Pages
607 (UK)
 759 (US)
ISBN
0-545-01022-5
Preceded by
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the seventh and final of the Harry Potter novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The book was released on 21 July 2007 by Bloomsbury Publishing in the United Kingdom, in the United States by Scholastic, and in Canada by Raincoast Books, ending the series that began in 1997 with the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The novel chronicles the events directly following Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), and the final confrontation between the wizards Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort.
Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in January 2007. Before its release, Bloomsbury reportedly spent GB£10 million to keep the book's contents safe before its release date. American publisher Arthur Levine refused any copies of the novel to be released in advance for press review, although two reviews were submitted early. Shortly before release, photos of all 759 pages of the U.S. edition were leaked and transcribed, leading Scholastic to look for the source that had leaked it.
Released globally in 93 countries, Deathly Hallows broke sales records as the fastest-selling book ever, a record it still holds today.[2] It sold 15 million copies in the first 24 hours following its release, including more than 11 million in the U.S. and UK alone. The previous record, 9 million in its first day, had been held by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The novel has also been translated into over 120 languages, including Ukrainian, Swedish, and Hindi.
Major themes in the novel are death and living in a corrupted society, and critics have compared them to Christian allegories. Generally well-received, the book won the 2008 Colorado Blue Spruce Book Award, and the American Library Association named it a "Best Book for Young Adults". A two-part film adaptation began showing in November 2010 when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 was released; Part 2 was released on 15 July 2011.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Contents 1.1 Plot introduction
1.2 Plot summary
1.3 Epilogue
2 Background 2.1 Franchise
2.2 Choice of title
2.3 Rowling on finishing the book
3 Major themes 3.1 Death
3.2 Living in a corrupted society
3.3 Christian allegories
4 Release 4.1 Marketing and promotion
4.2 Spoiler embargo
4.3 Online leaks and early delivery
4.4 Price wars and other controversies
5 Publication and reception 5.1 Critical response
5.2 Sales, awards and honours
6 Translations
7 Editions
8 Adaptations 8.1 Film
8.2 Audiobooks
9 The Tales of Beedle the Bard
10 Notes
11 References
12 Bibliography
13 External links
Contents
Plot introduction
Throughout the six previous novels in the series, the titular character Harry Potter has struggled with the difficulties of adolescence along with being a famous wizard. When Harry was a baby, Lord Voldemort, a powerful evil wizard, murdered Harry's parents but vanished after attempting to kill Harry. Harry immediately became famous, and was placed in the care of his Muggle (non-magical) relatives Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.
In Philosopher's Stone, Harry re-enters the wizarding world at age 11 and enrolls in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He makes friends with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Harry also meets the school's headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, and Professor Severus Snape, who dislikes him. Harry fights Voldemort several times while at school, as the wizard tries to regain a physical form. In Goblet of Fire, Harry is entered in a dangerous magical competition called the Triwizard Tournament. At the conclusion of the Tournament, Harry witnesses the return of Lord Voldemort to full strength. During Order of the Phoenix, Harry and several of his friends face off against Voldemort's Death Eaters, a group of Dark witches and wizards, and narrowly defeat them. In Half-Blood Prince, Harry learns that Voldemort has created six "horcruxes" to become immortal. A Horcrux is a fragment of a person's soul placed within an object so that when the body dies, a part of the soul remains and the person can be regenerated or resurrected.[3] However, the destruction of the creator's body leaves the wizard or witch in a state of half-life, without corporeal form.[4] Two horcruxes have already been destroyed, one by Harry in the events of Chamber of Secrets and one by Dumbledore shortly before the events of Half-Blood Prince. When returning from a mission to discover a horcrux, Dumbledore is murdered by Snape, a former Death Eater whom Harry suspected of secretly remaining loyal to Voldemort. At the conclusion of the book, Harry decides to leave school, find and destroy the remaining four Horcruxes, and defeat the evil wizard Voldemort, once and for all.
Plot summary
Following Dumbledore's death, Voldemort continues to gain support and increase his power. When Harry turns seventeen, the protection he has at his aunt and uncle's house will be broken. Before that can happen, at Mad Eye Moody's suggestion, Harry flees to the Burrow with his friends, many of whom use Polyjuice Potion to impersonate him so as to confuse any Death Eaters that may attack. They are indeed attacked shortly after leaving Privet Drive; Mad Eye is killed, and George Weasley wounded, but the rest arrive safely at the Burrow. Ron and Hermione decide to accompany Harry, instead of returning to Hogwarts School for their seventh year, to finish the quest Dumbledore started: to hunt and destroy Voldemort's four remaining Horcruxes. They have little knowledge about the remaining Horcruxes except that one is a locket once owned by Hogwarts' co-founder Salazar Slytherin, one is possibly a cup once owned by co-founder Helga Hufflepuff, a third may be connected with co-founder Rowena Ravenclaw, and the fourth may be Nagini, Voldemort's snake familiar. The whereabouts of the founders' objects is unknown, and Nagini is presumed to be with Voldemort. Before leaving, they attend Ron's brother's Bill's wedding to Fleur Delacour, with Harry disguised by Polyjuice Potion, but the Ministry of Magic is taken over by Death Eaters during the wedding and they barely escape with their lives.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione flee to 12 Grimmauld Place in London, which is Sirius Black's family's house, where they learn from the house-elf Kreacher the whereabouts of Salazar Slytherin's locket, which Sirius' brother Regulus stole from Voldemort at the cost of his own life. They successfully recover this Horcrux by infiltrating the Ministry of Magic and stealing it from Dolores Umbridge. Under the object's evil influence and the stress of being on the run, Ron leaves the others. As Harry and Hermione search for the Horcruxes, they learn more about Dumbledore's past, including the insanity and death of Dumbledore's younger sister and his connection to the evil wizard Grindewald. Harry and Hermione ultimately travel to Godric's Hollow, Harry's birthplace and the place where his parents died. They meet the eldery magical historian Bathilda Bagshot, who turns out to be Nagini in disguise and attacks them. They escape into the Forest of Dean, where a mysterious silver doe that appears to be a Patronus leads Harry to the Sword of Hogwarts co-founder Godric Gryffindor, one of the few objects able to destroy Horcruxes, lying at the bottom of an icy lake. When Harry attempts to recover the sword from the pool, the Horcrux attempts to kill him. Ron reappears, saving Harry and then using the sword to destroy the locket. Resuming their search, the trio repeatedly encounter a strange symbol that an eccentric wizard named Xenophilius Lovegood tells them represents the mythical Deathly Hallows. The Hallows are three sacred objects: the Elder Wand, an unbeatable wand; the Resurrection Stone, with the power to summon the dead to the living world; and an infallible Invisibility Cloak. Harry learns that Voldemort is seeking the Elder Wand, recognises the Resurrection Stone from the second Horcrux, which Dumbledore had destroyed, and realises that his own Invisibility Cloak is the one mentioned in the story, but he is unaware of the Hallows' significance.
The trio are captured and taken to Malfoy Manor, where Bellatrix Lestrange tortures Hermione. Harry and Ron are thrown in the cellar, where they find Luna Lovegood, Ollivander, Dean Thomas, and Griphook. They escape to Shell Cottage (Bill and Fleur's house) with Dobby's help, but at the cost of the house-elf's life. Harry now realises that the Hallows may have the power to defeat Death and knows that Voldemort robbed Dumbledore's tomb to procure the Elder Wand, but he decides to focus on finding the Horcruxes instead of the Hallows. With Griphook's help, they learn that Helga Hufflepuff's cup – a Horcrux – is hidden in Bellatrix's vault at Gringotts, break into her vault, retrieve the cup, and escape on a dragon, with Griphook swiping the sword and escaping on his own. From his connection to Voldemort's thoughts, Harry learns that another Horcrux is hidden in Hogwarts, which is under the control of Severus Snape. Harry, Ron, and Hermione enter the school through Hogsmeade (being saved by Aberforth Dumbledore, who explains more about Albus's backstory) and – with the help of the teachers – Snape is ousted from the school. Ron and Hermione go to the Chamber of Secrets and destroy the cup using a basilisk fang. The trio then finds Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem (another Horcrux) in the Room of Requirement. Vincent Crabbe casts a Fiendfyre curse in an attempt to kill Harry, Ron, and Hermione, but he instead destroys the diadem, the Room of Requirement, and himself. At this point, a total of five Horcruxes have been destroyed.
The Death Eaters and Voldemort besiege Hogwarts, while Harry, Ron, Hermione, their allies, and various magical creatures defend the school. Several major characters are killed in the first wave of the battle, including Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, and Fred Weasley. Voldemort kills Severus Snape because he believes doing so will make him the Elder Wand's true master, since Snape killed Dumbledore. Harry discovers while viewing Snape's memories that Voldemort inadvertently made Harry into a seventh Horcrux when he attacked him as a baby, which is the true significance of Harry's scar, and that Harry must die in order to destroy Voldemort. These memories also confirm Snape's unwavering loyalty to Dumbledore and that his role as a double-agent against Voldemort never wavered after Voldemort killed Lily Evans, Harry's mother and Snape's one true love. Harry also learns that Dumbledore had less than a year to live when he died, that his death by Snape's hand had been per Dumbledore's request, and that Dumbledore had known that Harry must die. After using the Resurrection Stone to bring back his deceased loved ones for a short while, Harry surrenders himself to death at Voldemort's hand. Voldemort casts the Killing Curse at him, but it only sends Harry into a limbo-like state between life and death.
While in this state, Dumbledore's spirit explains to Harry that when Voldemort used Harry's blood to regain his full strength, it protected Harry from Voldemort killing him; however, the Horcrux inside Harry has been destroyed, and Harry can return to his body despite being hit by the Killing Curse. Dumbledore also explains that Harry became the true master of the Deathly Hallows by facing Death, not by seeking to avoid it or conquer it. Harry returns to his body, feigning death, and Voldemort marches victoriously into the castle with his body. However, per Harry's prior instructions, Neville Longbottom kills Nagini, the last Horcrux, with the Sword of Gryffindor. Harry then reveals that he is still alive, and the battle resumes, with Bellatrix Lestrange being killed by Molly Weasley.
Harry and Voldemort engage in a final climactic duel. Harry reveals that because he willingly sacrificed himself to death by Voldemort's hand, his act of love would protect the Wizarding community from Voldemort in the same way the sacrifice Harry's mother made protected Harry. Harry also reveals that Snape was not loyal to Voldemort, did not murder Dumbledore, and was never the master of the Elder Wand. Instead, Draco was the master of the Elder Wand after disarming Dumbledore, but, because Harry had disarmed Draco at Malfoy Manor, Harry is the true master of the Elder Wand. Harry claims that the wand will refuse to kill the one to whom it owes allegiance, further protecting Harry. During the duel, Harry refuses to use the killing curse and even encourages Voldemort to feel remorse, one known way to restore Voldemort's shattered soul. Voldemort dies when his own killing curse backfires against Harry's disarming curse, killing himself; the Death Eaters are finally defeated. The wizarding world is able to live in peace once more.
Epilogue
The novel, the last in the series, closes with a brief epilogue set 19 years later, in which Harry and Ginny Weasley are a married couple with three children: James Sirius, Albus Severus, and Lily Luna. Ron and Hermione Weasley are also married and have two children, Rose and Hugo. The families meet at King's Cross station, where a nervous Albus is departing for his first year at Hogwarts. Harry's godson, Teddy Lupin, is found kissing Bill and Fleur Weasley's daughter Victoire in a train carriage. Harry sees Draco Malfoy and his wife with their son, Scorpius. Neville Longbottom is now a Hogwarts professor and remains friends with the two families. Harry comforts Albus, who is worried he will be sorted into Slytherin, and tells his son that one of his two namesakes, Severus Snape, was a Slytherin and the bravest man he had ever met. He adds that the Sorting Hat takes one's choice into account, like it did for Harry. The book ends with these final words: "The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well."
Background
Franchise
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published by Bloomsbury, the publisher of all Harry Potter books in the United Kingdom, on 30 June 1997.[5] It was released in the United States on 1 September 1998 by Scholastic—the American publisher of the books—as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,[6] after Rowling had received US$105,000 for the American rights—an unprecedented amount for a children's book by a then-unknown author.[7]
The second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was originally published in the UK on 2 July 1998, and in the US on 2 June 1999. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was then published a year later in the UK on 8 July 1999, and in the US on 8 September 1999.[8] Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published on 8 July 2000 at the same time by Bloomsbury and Scholastic.[9] Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the longest book in the series at 766 pages in the UK version and 870 pages in the US version.[10] It was published worldwide in English on 21 June 2003.[11] Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was published on 16 July 2005, and it sold 9 million copies in the first 24 hours of its worldwide release.[12][13]
Choice of title
Shortly before releasing the title, J. K. Rowling announced that she had considered three titles for the book.[14][15] The final title, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, named after the mythical Deathly Hallows in the novel, was released to the public on 21 December 2006, via a special Christmas-themed hangman puzzle on Rowling's website, confirmed shortly afterwards by the book's publishers.[16] When asked during a live chat about the other titles she had been considering, Rowling mentioned Harry Potter and the Elder Wand and Harry Potter and the Peverell Quest.[14]
Rowling on finishing the book



 Rowling completed the final chapters of Deathly Hallows in Room 652 of the Balmoral Hotel.
Rowling completed the book while staying at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh in January 2007, and left a signed statement on a marble bust of Hermes in her room which read: "J. K. Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (652) on 11 January 2007".[17] In a statement on her website, she said, "I've never felt such a mixture of extreme emotions in my life, never dreamed I could feel simultaneously heartbroken and euphoric." She compared her mixed feelings to those expressed by Charles Dickens in the preface of the 1850 edition of David Copperfield, "a two-years' imaginative task". "To which," she added, "I can only sigh, try seventeen years, Charles". She ended her message by saying "Deathly Hallows is my favourite, and that is the most wonderful way to finish the series".[18]
When asked before publication about the forthcoming book, Rowling stated that she could not change the ending even if she wanted. "These books have been plotted for such a long time, and for six books now, that they're all leading a certain direction. So, I really can't".[19] She also commented that the final volume related closely to the previous book in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, "almost as though they are two halves of the same novel".[20] She has said that the last chapter of the book was written "in something like 1990", as part of her earliest work on the series.[21] Rowling also revealed she originally wrote the last words to be "something like: 'Only those who he loved could see his lightning scar'". Rowling changed this because she did not want people to think Voldemort would rise again and to say that Harry's mission was over.[22]
Major themes

A blonde woman with blue eyes has a red and white robe on over her dress is holding an honorary degree with her left hand.

J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, has said that the main theme of the series is Harry dealing with death.
Death
In a 2006 interview, J. K. Rowling said that the main theme of the series is Harry dealing with death,[23] which was influenced by her mother's death in 1990, from multiple sclerosis.[22][23][24][25] Lev Grossman of Time stated that the main theme of the series was the overwhelming importance of continuing to love in the face of death.[26]
Living in a corrupted society
Academics and journalists have developed many other interpretations of themes in the books, some more complex than others, and some including political subtexts. Themes such as normality, oppression, survival, and overcoming imposing odds have all been considered as prevalent throughout the series.[27] Similarly, the theme of making one's way through adolescence and "going over one's most harrowing ordeals—and thus coming to terms with them" has also been considered.[28] Rowling has stated that the books comprise "a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry" and that also pass on a message to "question authority and... not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth".[29]
Some political commentators have seen J. K. Rowling's portrayal of the bureaucratised Ministry of Magic and the oppressive measures taken by the Ministry in the later books (like making attendance at Hogwarts School compulsory and the "registration of Mudbloods" with the Ministry) as an allegory of criticising the state.[30]
Christian allegories
See also: Religious debates over the Harry Potter series#Christian allegories in Deathly Hallows
The Harry Potter series has been under criticism for supposedly supporting witchcraft and the occult. Before publication of Deathly Hallows, Rowling refused to speak out about her religion, stating, "If I talk too freely, every reader, whether 10 or 60, will be able to guess what's coming in the books".[31] However, many have noted Christian allegories apparent in Deathly Hallows.[31] For example, Harry dies and then comes back to life to save mankind, like Christ. The location where this occurs is King's Cross.[32] Harry also urges Voldemort to show remorse, to restore his shattered soul. Rowling also stated that "my belief and my struggling with religious belief ... I think is quite apparent in this book", which is shown as Harry struggles with his faith in Dumbledore.[33]



 The Philosopher's Stone as pictured in Michael Maier's 1617 alchemical work Atalanta Fugiens, similar to the presentation of the Deathly Hallows and Resurrection Stone.
Deathly Hallows begins with a pair of epigraphs, one by Quaker leader William Penn and one from Aeschylus' The Libation Bearers. Of this, Rowling said "I really enjoyed choosing those two quotations because one is pagan, of course, and one is from a Christian tradition. I'd known it was going to be those two passages since Chamber was published. I always knew [that] if I could use them at the beginning of book seven then I'd cued up the ending perfectly. If they were relevant, then I went where I needed to go. They just say it all to me, they really do".[34]
When Harry visits his parents' grave, the biblical reference "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (1 Corinthians 15:26) is inscribed on the grave.[35] The Dumbledores' family tomb also holds a biblical quote: "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also", which is from Matthew 6:21.[35] Rowling states, "They're very British books, so on a very practical note Harry was going to find biblical quotations on tombstones ...[but] I think those two particular quotations he finds on the tombstones at Godric's Hollow, they sum up – they almost epitomise the whole series".[35]
Harry Potter pundit John Granger additionally noted that one of the reasons the Harry Potter books were so popular is their use of literary alchemy (similar to Romeo and Juliet, C. S. Lewis's Perelandra and Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities) and vision symbolism.[36] In this model, authors weave allegorical tales along the alchemical magnum opus. Since the medieval period, alchemical allegory has mirrored the passion, death and resurrection of Christ.[37] While the entire series utilizes symbols common in alchemy, the Deathly Hallows completes this cycle, tying themes of death, rebirth, and the Resurrection Stone to the principal motif of alchemical allegory, and topics presented in the first book of the series.
Christian author Nancy Carpentier Brown also noted many Christian themes, such as Harry marking Mad-Eye Moody's grave with a cross, showing remorse and giving Voldemort a chance to redeem himself, and the Resurrection Stone.[38] She also pointed out that Harry becomes a godfather to Tonks and Lupin's son, Teddy Lupin.[38]
Release



 US cover of Deathly Hallows.
For more details on this topic, see Harry Potter fandom.
Marketing and promotion
The launch was celebrated by an all-night book signing and reading at the Natural History Museum in London, which Rowling attended along with 1,700 guests chosen by ballot.[39] Rowling toured the US in October 2007, where another event was held at Carnegie Hall in New York City with tickets allocated by sweepstake.[40]



 The seventh book about Harry Potter in a Russian translation "Harry Potter and the Gift of Death" went on sale at the bookstore Moskva in Moscow on 13 October 2007
Scholastic, the American publisher of the Harry Potter series, launched a multi-million dollar "There will soon be 7" marketing campaign with a "Knight Bus" travelling to 40 libraries across the United States, online fan discussions and competitions, collectible bookmarks, tattoos, and the staged release of seven Deathly Hallows questions most debated by fans.[41] In the build-up to the book's release, Scholastic released seven questions that fans would find answered in the final book:[42]
1.Who will live? Who will die?
2.Is Snape good or evil?
3.Will Hogwarts reopen?
4.Who ends up with whom?
5.Where are the Horcruxes?
6.Will Voldemort be defeated?
7.What are the Deathly Hallows?
J. K. Rowling arranged with her publishers for a poster bearing the face of the missing British child Madeleine McCann to be made available to book sellers when Deathly Hallows was launched on 21 July 2007, and said that she hoped that the posters would be displayed prominently in shops all over the world.[43]
After it was told that the novel would be released on 21 July 2007, Warner Bros. shortly thereafter said that the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix would be released shortly before the novel would be released, on 13 July 2007,[44] making many people proclaim that July 2007, was the month of Harry Potter.[45]
Spoiler embargo
Bloomsbury invested GB£10 million in an attempt to keep the book's contents secure until the 21 July release date.[46] Arthur Levine, U.S. editor of the Harry Potter series, denied distributing any copies of Deathly Hallows in advance for press review, but two U.S. papers published early reviews anyway.[47] There was speculation that some shops would break the embargo and distribute copies of the book early, as the penalty imposed for previous instalments—that the distributor would not be supplied with any further copies of the series—would no longer be a deterrent.[48]
Online leaks and early delivery
In the week before its release, a number of texts purporting to be genuine leaks appeared in various forms. On 16 July, a set of photographs representing all 759 pages of the U.S. edition was leaked and was fully transcribed prior to the official release date.[49][50][51][52] The photographs later appeared on websites and peer-to-peer networks, leading Scholastic to seek a subpoena in order to identify one source.[53] This represented the most serious security breach in the Harry Potter series' history.[54] Rowling and her lawyer confirmed that there were genuine online leaks.[55] Reviews published in both The Baltimore Sun and The New York Times on 18 July 2007, corroborated many of the plot elements from this leak, and about one day prior to release, The New York Times confirmed that the main circulating leak was real.[54]
Scholastic announced that approximately one-ten-thousandth (0.0001) of the U.S. supply had been shipped early — interpreted to mean about 1,200 copies. One reader in Maryland received a copy of the book in the mail from DeepDiscount.com four days before it was launched, which evoked incredulous responses from both Scholastic and DeepDiscount. Scholastic initially reported that they were satisfied it had been a "human error" and would not discuss possible penalties;[56] however, the following day Scholastic announced that it would be launching legal action against DeepDiscount.com and its distributor, Levy Home Entertainment.[57] Scholastic filed for damages in Chicago's Circuit Court of Cook County, claiming that DeepDiscount engaged in a "complete and flagrant violation of the agreements that they knew were part of the carefully constructed release of this eagerly awaited book."[58] Some of the early release books soon appeared on eBay, in one case being sold to Publishers Weekly for US$250 from an initial price of US$18.[59]
Price wars and other controversies
Asda,[60][61] along with several other UK supermarkets, having already taken pre-orders for the book at a heavily discounted price, sparked a price war two days before the book's launch by announcing they would sell it for just GB£5 a copy (about US$8). Other retail chains then also offered the book at discounted prices. At these prices the book became a loss leader. This caused uproar from traditional UK booksellers who argued they had no hope of competing in those conditions. Independent shops protested loudest, but even Waterstone's, the UK's largest dedicated chain bookstore, could not compete with the supermarket price. Some small bookstores hit back by buying their stock from the supermarkets rather than their wholesalers. Asda attempted to counter this by imposing a limit of two copies per customer to prevent bulk purchases. Philip Wicks, a spokesman for the UK Booksellers Association, said, "It is a war we can't even participate in. We think it's a crying shame that the supermarkets have decided to treat it as a loss-leader, like a can of baked beans." Michael Norris, an analyst at Simba Information, said: "You are not only lowering the price of the book. At this point, you are lowering the value of reading."[62]
In Malaysia, a similar price war caused controversy regarding sales of the book.[63] Four of the biggest bookstore chains in Malaysia, MPH Bookstores, Popular Bookstores, Times and Harris, decided to pull Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows off their shelves as a protest against Tesco and Carrefour hypermarkets. The retail price of the book in Malaysia is MYR 109.90 (about GB£16), while the hypermarkets Tesco and Carrefour sold the book at MYR 69.90 (about GB£10). The move by the bookstores was seen as an attempt to pressure the distributor Penguin Books to remove the books from the hypermarkets. However, as of 24 July 2007, the price war has ended, with the four bookstores involved resuming selling the books in their stores with discount. Penguin Books has also confirmed that Tesco and Carrefour are selling the book at a loss, urging them to practice good business sense and fair trade.[64]
The book's early Saturday morning release in Israel was criticised for violating Shabbat. Trade and Industry Minister Eli Yishai commented "It is forbidden, according to Jewish values and Jewish culture, that a thing like this should take place at 2 am on Saturday. Let them do it on another day."[65] Yishai indicated that he would issue indictments and fines based on the Hours of Work and Rest Law.[66]
Publication and reception
Critical response
The Baltimore Sun's critic, Mary Carole McCauley, noted that the book was more serious than the previous novels in the series and had more straightforward prose.[67] Furthermore, reviewer Alice Fordham from The Times wrote that "Rowling's genius is not just her total realisation of a fantasy world, but the quieter skill of creating characters that bounce off the page, real and flawed and brave and lovable". Fordham concluded, "We have been a long way together, and neither Rowling nor Harry let us down in the end".[68] The New York Times writer Michiko Kakutani agreed, praising Rowling's ability to make Harry both a hero and a character that can be related to.[69]
Time magazine's Lev Grossman named it one of the Top 10 Fiction Books of 2007, ranking it at No. 8, and praised Rowling for proving that books can still be a global mass medium.[26] Novelist Elizabeth Hand criticised that "...the spectacularly complex interplay of narrative and character often reads as though an entire trilogy's worth of summing-up has been crammed into one volume."[70] In a starred review from Kirkus Reviews, the reviewer said, "Rowling has shown uncommon skill in playing them with and against each other, and also woven them into a darn good bildungsroman, populated by memorable characters and infused with a saving, irrepressible sense of fun". They also praised the second half of the novel, but criticised the epilogue, calling it "provacatively sketchy".[71] In another review from The Times, reviewer Amanda Craig said that while Rowling was "not an original, high-concept author", she was "right up there with other greats of children's fiction". Craig went on to say that the novel was "beautifully judged, and a triumphant return to form", and that Rowling's imagination changed the perception of an entire generation, which "is more than all but a handful of living authors, in any genre, have achieved in the past half-century".[72]
In contrast, Jenny Sawyer of The Christian Science Monitor said that, "There is much to love about the Harry Potter series, from its brilliantly realised magical world to its multilayered narrative", however, "A story is about someone who changes. And, puberty aside, Harry doesn't change much. As envisioned by Rowling, he walks the path of good so unwaveringly that his final victory over Voldemort feels, not just inevitable, but hollow".[73] In The New York Times, Christopher Hitchens compared the series to World War Two-era English boarding school stories, and while he wrote that "Rowling has won imperishable renown" for the series as a whole, he also stated that he disliked Rowling's use of deus ex machina, that the mid-book camping chapters are "abysmally long", and Voldemort "becomes more tiresome than an Ian Fleming villain".[74] Catherine Bennett of The Guardian praised Rowling for putting small details from the previous books and making them large in Deathly Hallows, such as Grindelwald being mentioned on a Chocolate Frog Card in the first book. While she points out "as her critics say, Rowling is no Dickens", she says that Rowling "has willed into a fictional being, in every book, legions of new characters, places, spells, rules and scores of unimagined twists and subplots".[75]
Stephen King criticised the reactions of some reviewers to the books, including McCauley, for jumping too quickly to surface conclusions of the work.[76] He felt this was inevitable, because of the extreme secrecy before launch which did not allow reviewers time to read and consider the book, but meant that many early reviews lacked depth. Rather than finding the writing style disappointing, he felt it had matured and improved. He acknowledged that the subject matter of the books had become more adult, and that Rowling had clearly been writing with the adult audience firmly in mind since the middle of the series. He compared the works in this respect to Huckleberry Finn and Alice in Wonderland which achieved success and have become established classics, in part by appealing to the adult audience as well as children.[76]
Sales, awards and honours

There are many people in a close proximity in a bookstore buying "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows".

 Lines at Borders at midnight to buy the book
Sales for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows were record setting. The initial U.S. print run for Deathly Hallows was 12 million copies, and more than a million were pre-ordered through Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble,[77] 500 percent higher than pre-sales had been for Half-Blood Prince.[78] On 12 April 2007, Barnes & Noble declared that Deathly Hallows had broken its pre-order record, with more than 500,000 copies pre-ordered through its site.[79] On opening day, a record 8.3 million copies were sold in the United States (over 96 per second),[80][81] and 2.65 million copies in the United Kingdom.[82] It holds the Guinness World record for fastest selling book of fiction in 24 hours for U.S. sales.[83] At WH Smith, sales reportedly reached a rate of 15 books sold per second.[84] By June 2008, nearly a year after it was published, worldwide sales were reportedly around 44 million.[1]
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has won several awards.[85] In 2007, the book was named one of The New York Times 100 Notable Books,[86] and one of its Notable Children's Books.[87] The novel was named the best book of 2007, by Newsweek's critic Malcolm Jones.[88] Publishers Weekly also listed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows among their Best Books of 2007.[89] In 2008, the American Library Association named the novel one of its Best Books for Young Adults,[90] and also listed it as a Notable Children's Book.[91] Furthermore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows received the 2008 Colorado Blue Spruce Book Award.[85]
Translations
Main article: Harry Potter in translation
Due to its worldwide fame, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' has been translated into many languages. The first translation to be released was the Ukrainian translation, on 25 September 2007 (as Гаррі Поттер і смертельні реліквії).[92] The Swedish title of the book was revealed by Rowling as Harry Potter and the Relics of Death (Harry Potter och Dödsrelikerna), following a pre-release question from the Swedish publisher about the difficulty of translating the two words "Deathly Hallows" without having read the book.[93] This is also the title used for the French translation (Harry Potter et les reliques de la mort), the Spanish translation (Harry Potter y las Reliquias de la Muerte), the Dutch translation (Harry Potter en de Relieken van de Dood) and the Brazilian Portuguese translation (Harry Potter e as Relíquias da Morte).[94] The first Polish translation was released with a new title: Harry Potter i Insygnia Śmierci – Harry Potter and the Insignia of Death.[95] The Hindi translation Harry Potter aur Maut ke Tohfe (हैरी पॉटर और मौत के तोहफे), which means "Harry Potter and the Gifts of Death", was released by Manjul Publication in India on 27 June 2008.[96]
Editions
Deathly Hallows was released in hardcover on 21 July 2007,[97] and in paperback in the United Kingdom on 10 July 2008,[98] and in the United States on 7 July 2009.[99] In SoHo, New York, there was a release party for the American paperback edition, with many games and activities.[100] An "Adult Edition" with a different cover illustration was released by Bloomsbury on 21 July 2007.[101] To be released simultaneously with the original U.S. hardcover on 21 July with only 100,000 copies was a Scholastic deluxe edition, highlighting a new cover illustration by Mary GrandPré.[102] In October 2010, Bloomsbury released a "Celebratory" paperback edition, which featured a foiled and starred cover.[103] Lastly, on 1 November 2010, a "Signature" edition of the novel was released in paperback by Bloomsbury.[104]
Adaptations
Film
Main articles: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2
A two-part film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is directed by David Yates, written by Steve Kloves and produced by David Heyman, David Barron and J. K. Rowling. Part 1 was released on 19 November 2010, and Part 2 on 15 July 2011.[105][106] Filming began in February 2009, and ended on 12 June 2010.[107] However, the cast confirmed they would reshoot the epilogue scene as they only had two days to shoot the original.[108] Reshoots officially ended around December 2010.[note 1][109] Part 1 ended at Chapter 24 of the book, when Voldemort regained the Elder Wand.[110] However, there were a few omissions, such as the appearances of Dean Thomas and Viktor Krum, and Peter Pettigrew's death.[111] James Bernadelli of Reelviews said that the script stuck closest to the text since Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,[112] yet this was met with negativity from some audiences as the film inherited "the book's own problems".[113]
Audiobooks
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released simultaneously on 21 July 2007, in both the UK and the United States.[114][115] The UK edition features the voice of Stephen Fry and runs about 24 hours[116] while the U.S. edition features the voice of Jim Dale and runs about 21 hours.[117] Both Fry and Dale recorded 146 different and distinguishable character voices, and was the most recorded by an individual on an audiobook at the time.[118]
For his work on Deathly Hallows, Dale won the 2008 Grammy Award for the Best Spoken Word Album for Children.[119] He also was awarded an Earphone Award by AudioFile, who claimed, "Dale has raised the bar on audiobook interpretation so high it's hard to imagine any narrator vaulting over it."[120]
The Tales of Beedle the Bard
Main article: The Tales of Beedle the Bard
On 4 December 2008, Rowling released The Tales of Beedle the Bard both in the UK and US.[121] The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a spin-off of Deathly Hallows and contains fairy tales that are told to children in the "Wizarding World". The book includes five short stories, including "The Tale of the Three Brothers" which is the story of the Deathly Hallows.
Amazon.com released an exclusive collector's edition of the book which is a replica of the book that Amazon.com purchased at auction in December 2007.[122] Seven copies were auctioned off in London by Sotheby’s. Each was illustrated and handwritten by Rowling and is 157 pages. It was bound in brown Moroccan leather and embellished with five hand-chased hallmarked sterling silver ornaments and mounted moonstones.[123]
Notes
1.Jump up ^ While this is not officially confirmed, Emma Watson, who portrays Hermione Granger in the film adaptations, is quoted as saying "We have reshoots at Christmas", so filming presumably ended around this time.
References
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Bibliography
Granger, John. The Deathly Hallows Lectures: The Hogwarts Professor Explains the Final Harry Potter Adventure. Zossima Press: 2008. ISBN 0-9723221-7-5.
Hall, Susan. Reading Harry Potter: critical essays. Greenwood Publishing: 2003. ISBN 0-313-32067-5.
Rowling, JK. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. London: Bloomsbury/New York City: Scholastic: 2005. UK ISBN 0-747-58108-8/U.S. ISBN 0-439-78454-9.
Rowling, JK. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury/New York City: Scholastic: 2000. UK ISBN 0-747-54624-X/U.S. ISBN 0-439-13959-7.
Shapiro, Marc. J. K. Rowling: The Wizard Behind Harry Potter. St. Martin's Press: 2007. ISBN 0-312-37697-9.
Heckl, Raik. "The Tale of the Three Brothers" and the Idea of the Speaking Dead in the Harry Potter Novels. Leipzig: 2008.
External links

Portal icon Novels portal
Portal icon Harry Potter portal
Book icon Book: Harry Potter

 Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
 The Wikibook Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter has a page on the topic of: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Harry Potter at Bloomsbury.com web site UK publisher book information
Harry Potter at Scholastic.com web site U.S. publisher book information
Harry Potter at Allen & Unwin web site at WebCite (archived 28 July 2007) Australia-New Zealand publisher book information

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Categories: 2000s fantasy novels
2007 novels
Harry Potter books
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Bloomsbury Publishing books
Scholastic Corporation books






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