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Wednesday 3 June 2015

Harry Potter

Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The series chronicles the adventures of young wizard Harry Potter at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and his battles with the evil Voldemort.

JK Rowling was staring out of the window of a train when the idea, plot and characters for Harry Potter came to her.

J.K. Rowling completed the manuscript of her first Harry Potter story in 1995, having written some of it in local cafés in Edinburgh, where she was an unemployed single mother living on state benefits.

JK Rowling was offered £2,000 as the advance for her first Harry Potter book. She has subsequently sold more than 450 million copies of her Harry Potter series, making them the best-selling novel series in history.

The first hardback print run of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was a mere 500 copies. It was published on June 26, 1997.

Wikipedia

A UK first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone that lists Joanne as the author—instead of J.K.—is worth around $50,000.

The seven Harry Potter books are:
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (published in 1997 and also as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States in 1998),
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007).

A year before it came out, J.K. Rowling revealed the plot of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to a girl who would die before it was published.

In 2000, J.K. Rowling gave her father the first edition of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for Father's Day and signed it: "Lots of love from your first born." Three years later, he sold it for £27,500.

The final Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, was released on July 21, 2007.

The Deathly Hallows sold more than 345,000 copies per hour after its release — earning it the world record for the fastest-selling book.

Rowling told television talk show host Oprah Winfrey in October 2010 that she cried uncontrollably when she finished the last of Harry Potter books.


The Harry Potter series has been translated into over 75 languages—including Azerbaijani, Malayalam, and Welsh, as well as the dead languages Latin and Ancient Greek.

In 2002 a fake Chinese-language sequel titled Harry Potter and Bao Zoulong appeared in China. The book consists of the text of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit with names changed to those of Harry Potter characters.

The two-part West End stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child premiered on July 30, 2016. Both parts of the stage play's script were released in print and digital formats selling in 2016 almost four times as much as the next bestselling book, The Girl on the Train.

Official poster and logo of the 2015 West End play Wikipedia Commons 

One Harry Potter character is named after a real person - Natalie McDonald, a young Canadian girl who wrote to Rowling shortly before she died of cancer.

Hedwig, Harry Potter's owl, is named after the patron saint of orphaned and abandoned children.

Rowling's parents actually met on a train from King's Cross Station, where the magical gateway into the Wizarding World is located.

J.K. Rowling has entertained the idea that Harry Potter went mad in the cupboard under the stairs and made up a magical world in his head to cope with it.

"Harry Potter" is mentioned 18,956 times throughout all the Harry Potter books.

The Harry Potter series contains approximately 38% more words than the King James Bible.

The Harry Potter novels are the most banned books of the 21st century in the US.

The Harry Potter series also spawned a record-breaking movie franchise starring Daniel Radcliffe in the title role. The first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, had its world premiere in London on November 4, 2001.


The whole Harry Potter series contains 199 chapters, 4,224 pages and 1,090,739 words and has been made into 19 hours and 39 minutes of film.

Daniel Radcliffe was in the bath when he found out he'd been cast as Harry Potter. He cried.

In total, Daniel Radcliffe went through 160 pairs of prop glasses by the end of the Harry Potter series.

For the first Harry Potter film, some scenes were filmed twice, with the actors saying "Philosopher's Stone" for the UK version and "Sorcerer's Stone" for the US version.

All the books in Dumbledore’s office in the Harry Potter movies are just the Yellow Pages rebound to look old.

It would cost $43,000 to send a single child to Hogwarts for one year if the school were real.

Michael Jackson wanted to do a Harry Potter musical – but Rowling wasn't keen.

The 1986 movie Troll features a character named Harry Potter who navigates a world full of witches, wizards, and magic to save his family.

Source The Montreal Gazette

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