Cultural impact

Since the publishing of Philosopher's Stone a number of societal trends have been attributed to the series.
The most notable trend attributed to Harry Potter has been an increase in literacy among the young. Anecdotal evidence suggesting such an increase was seemingly confirmed in 2006 when the Kids and Family Reading Report (in conjunction with Scholastic) released a survey finding that 51% of Harry Potter readers ages 5–17 said that while they did not read books for fun before they started reading Harry Potter, they now did. The study further reported that according to 65% of children and 76% of parents, they or their children's performance in school improved since they started reading the series.[43] Charlie Griffiths, director of the National Literacy Association, said "Anyone who can persuade children to read should be treasured and what Rowling has given us in Harry Potter is little short of miraculous."[44] British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a long time fan, said, "I think JK Rowling has done more for literacy around the world than any single human being."[45][46]
Indeed as the series progresses, each book gets progressively longer, developing along with the reader's literary abilities. A word-count comparison shows how each book, save the sixth, is longer than its predecessor, requiring greater concentration and longer attention spans to complete. This fact in itself can be seen as contributory to improved literary abilities in children who tackle the series.[47]
In 2005, doctors at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford reported that their research of the weekends of Saturday 21 June 2003 and Saturday 16 July 2005 (the release dates of the Order of the Phoenix and the Half-Blood Prince, respectively) found that only 36 children needed emergency medical assistance for injuries sustained in accidents, as opposed to other weekends' average of 67.[48]

Crowds wait outside a Borders store in Newark, Delaware for the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Notable also is the development of a massive following of fans. So eager were these fans for the latest series release that bookstores around the world began holding events to coincide with the midnight release of the books, beginning with the 2000 publication of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The events, commonly featuring mock sorting, games, face painting, and other live entertainment have achieved popularity with Potter fans and have been incredibly successful at attracting fans and selling books with nearly nine million of the 10.8 million initial print copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sold in the first 24 hours.[49][50] Among this large base of fans are a minority of "super-fans", similar to the Trekkies of the Star Trek fandom. Besides meeting online through blogs, podcasts, and fansites, Harry Potter super-fans can also meet at Harry Potter symposia. These events draw people from around the world to attend lectures, discussions and a host of other Potter themed activities.
The Harry Potter books have inspired the "wizard rock" movement, where a number of bands were formed whose names, image and song lyrics relate to the Harry Potter world. Examples include Harry and the Potters and The Cruciatus Curse.[51]
Harry Potter has also brought changes in the publishing world, one of the most noted being the reformation of the New York Times Best Seller list. The change came immediately preceding the release of Goblet of Fire in 2000 when publishers complained of the number of slots on the list being held by Harry Potter and other children's books. The Times subsequently created a separate children's list for Harry Potter and other children's literature.[52]
The word muggle has spread beyond its Harry Potter origins, used by many groups to indicate those who are not aware or are lacking in some skill. In 2003, "muggle", entered the Oxford English Dictionary with that definition.[53]
There is an accredited course at California State University, Bakersfield devoted to the literature of Harry Potter titled "The World of Harry Potter."[54]

Themes

According to Rowling, a major theme in the series is the theme of death. She says:[37]
“
My books are largely about death. They open with the death of Harry's parents. There is Voldemort's obsession with conquering death and his quest for immortality at any price, the goal of anyone with magic. I so understand why Voldemort wants to conquer death. We're all frightened of it.
”
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".[38][39]
While the books could be said to comprise many other themes, such as power/abuse of power, love, prejudice, and free choice, they are, as J.K. Rowling states, "deeply entrenched in the whole plot"; the writer prefers to let themes "grow organically", rather than sitting down and consciously attempting to impart such ideas to her readers.[40] Along the same lines is the ever-present theme of adolescence, in whose depiction Rowling has been purposeful in acknowledging her characters' sexualities and not leaving Harry, as she put it, "stuck in a state of permanent pre-pubescence".[41]
Rowling said that, to her, the moral significance of the tales seems "blindingly obvious." The key for her was the choice between what is right and what is easy, "because that, that is how tyranny is started, with people being apathetic and taking the easy route and suddenly finding themselves in deep trouble."[42]

Structure and genre

The novels are very much in the fantasy genre; in many respects they are also bildungsromans, coming of age novels. They can also be considered to be part of the British children's boarding school genre, which includes Enid Blyton's Malory Towers, St Clares and the Naughtiest Girl series, and Frank Richards Billy Bunter novels. The stories are predominantly set in Hogwarts, a fictional British boarding school for wizards, where the curriculum includes the use of magic. In this sense they are "in a direct line of descent from Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days and other Victorian and Edwardian novels of British public school life".[35] They are also, in the words of Stephen King, "shrewd mystery tales",[36] and each book is constructed in the manner of a Sherlock Holmes-style mystery adventure; the books leave a number of clues hidden in the narrative, while the characters pursue a number of suspects through various exotic locations, leading to a twist ending that often reverses what the characters had been led to believe. The stories are told from a third person limited point of view; with very few exceptions (such as the opening chapters of Philosopher's Stone and Deathly Hallows and the first two chapters of Half-Blood Prince), the reader learns the secrets of the story when Harry does. The thoughts and plans of other characters, even central ones such as Hermione and Ron, are kept hidden until revealed to Harry.
The books tend to follow a very strict formula. Set over the course of consecutive school years, they each begin with Harry at home with his relatives the Dursleys in the Muggle world, enduring their ill treatment. Subsequently, Harry goes to a specific magical location (Diagon Alley, the Weasleys' residence or Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place) for a short period before the new school year begins, which he commences by boarding the school train at Platform 9¾, Kings Cross Station. Once at school, new or redefined characters are introduced, and Harry overcomes new everyday school issues, such as difficult essays, awkward crushes, and unsympathetic teachers. The stories reach their climax in the summer term, near or just after final exams, when Harry confronts either Voldemort or one of his followers, the Death Eaters. In the aftermath, he learns important lessons through exposition and discussions with headteacher and mentor Albus Dumbledore. This formula was completely broken in the final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in which Harry and his friends spend most of their time away from Hogwarts, and only return there to face Voldemort at the dénouement.

Translations

The series has been translated into 65 languages,[28] placing Rowling among the most translated authors in history.[29] The first translation was into American English, as many words and concepts used by the characters in the novels may have been misleading to a young American audience. Subsequently the books have seen translations in languages as diverse as Ukrainian, Hindi, Bengali, Welsh, Afrikaans and Vietnamese. The first volume has been translated into Latin and even Ancient Greek,[30] making it the longest published work in that language since the novels of Heliodorus of Emesa in the 3rd century AD.[31]
The high profile and huge public demand for a decent local translation means that a great deal of care is often taken in the task. In some countries such as Italy, the first book was revised by the publishers and issued in an updated edition, in response to feedback from readers. In countries such as China and Portugal, the translation is conducted by a group of translators working together to save time. Some of the translators hired to work on the books were quite well known prior to their work on Harry Potter, such as Viktor Golyshev, who oversaw the Russian translation of the series' fifth book. Golyshev was previously best known for translating William Faulkner and George Orwell;[32] his tendency to snub the Harry Potter books in interviews and refer to them as inferior literature may be the reason he did not return to work on later books in the series. The Turkish translation of books two to seven was undertaken by Sevin Okyay, a popular literary critic and cultural commentator.[33] For reasons of secrecy, translation can only start when the books are released in English; thus there is a lag of several months before the translations are available. This has led to more and more copies of the English editions being sold to impatient fans in non-English speaking countries. Such was the clamour to read the fifth book that its English language edition became the first English-language book ever to top the bestseller list in France.[34]

After Deathly Hallows

Rowling spent seventeen years writing the seven Harry Potter books. In a 2000 interview through Scholastic, her American publisher, Rowling stated that there is not a university after Hogwarts. Concerning the series continuing past book seven, she stated, "I will not say never, but I have no plans to write an eighth book."[21] She has since said that if she does write an eighth book Harry Potter will not be the central character, as his story has been told, and that she would not begin such a project for at least ten years.[22]
When asked about writing other Harry Potter-related books similar to Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, she has said that she might consider doing this with proceeds donated to charity, as was the case with those two books. Another suggestion is an encyclopedia-style tome containing information that never made it into the series, also for charity.[23] She has revealed she is currently penning two books, one for children and one not for children.[24]
In February 2007 Rowling issued a statement on her website about finishing the final book, in which she compared her mixed feelings of "mourning" and "incredible sense of achievement" 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…"
On July 24, 2007, Rowling announced in an interview that she "probably will" write an encyclopedia of the Harry Potter world, which would include background information cut from the narrative as well as post-Deathly Hallows information, including details of what happens to the other characters, who the new Hogwarts headmaster is, and more.[25] Rowling refers to the encyclopedia as the "Scottish Book", a take on the Scottish play.[26]
In a 90-minute live Web chat, Rowling revealed[27] what several of the characters did in the years between the conclusion of the book and the epilogue.

Completion of the series

In December 2005, Rowling stated on her web site, "2006 will be the year when I write the final book in the Harry Potter series." Updates have since followed in her online diary chronicling the progress of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with the release date of 21 July 2007.
The book itself was finished on 11 January 2007 in the Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh, where she scrawled a message on the back of a bust of Hermes. It read: “JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (652) on 11 January 2007.”[16]
Rowling herself has stated that the last chapter of the seventh book (in fact, the epilogue) was completed "in something like 1990".[17][18]
In June 2006, Rowling, on an appearance on the British talk show Richard & Judy, announced that the chapter had been modified as one character "got a reprieve" and two others who previously survived the story had in fact been killed. She also said she could see the logic in killing off Harry to stop other writers from writing books about Harry's life after Hogwarts.[19]
On March 28, 2007, the cover art for the Bloomsbury Adult and Child versions and the Scholastic version were released.[20]

Origins and publishing history

In 1990, J. K. Rowling was on a crowded train from Manchester to London when the idea for Harry suddenly "fell into her head". Rowling gives an account of the experience on her website saying:[10]
“
I had been writing almost continuously since the age of six but I had never been so excited about an idea before. I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, and all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who did not know he was a wizard became more and more real to me.
”
In 1995, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was completed and the manuscript was sent off to prospective agents. The second agent she tried, Christopher Little, offered to represent her and sent the manuscript to Bloomsbury. After eight other publishers had rejected Philosopher's Stone, Bloomsbury offered Rowling a £2,500 advance for its publication.[11]
Despite Rowling's statement that she did not have any particular age group in mind when she began to write the Harry Potter books, the publishers initially targeted them at children age nine to eleven.[12] On the eve of publishing, Joanne Rowling was asked by her publishers to adopt a more gender-neutral pen name, in order to appeal to the male members of this age group, fearing that they would not be interested in reading a novel they knew to be written by a woman. She elected to use J. K. Rowling (Joanne Kathleen Rowling), using her grandmother's name as her second name, because she has no middle name.[13]
The first Harry Potter book was published in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury in July 1997 and in the United States by Scholastic in September 1998, but not before Rowling had received $105,000 for the American rights – an unprecedented amount for a children's book by a then unknown author.[14] Fearing that American readers would not associate the word "philosopher" with a magical theme (as a Philosopher's Stone is alchemy-related), Scholastic insisted that the book be given the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the American market.
Rowling's publishers were able to capitalise on this buzz by the rapid, successive releases of the first four books that allowed neither Rowling's audience's excitement nor interest to wane while she took a break from writing between the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and also quickly solidified a loyal readership.[15] The series has also gathered adult fans, leading to two editions of each Harry Potter book being released (in markets other than the United States), identical in text but with one edition's cover artwork aimed at children and the other aimed at adults.