Harry Potter

The Harry Potter books are a series of fantasy novels by English writer J. K. Rowling. more...

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The books depict a society of witches and wizards which lives in the present day, and maintains itself hidden from non-magical humans (muggles); the protagonist is the young wizard Harry Potter. Since the release of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States) in 1997, the books have gained immense popularity and commercial success worldwide, spawning films, video games, and a wealth of other items.

The six books to date have collectively sold more than 300 million copies and have been translated into more than 63 languages. The first volume has been translated into Latin and even Ancient Greek, making it the longest work in that language since the novels of Heliodorus of Emesa in the 3rd century AD. Due to the tremendous success of the novels, Rowling has become the richest writer in literary history. English language versions of the books are published by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom and internationally, and Scholastic Press in the United States, Allen & Unwin in Australia and Raincoast Books in Canada.

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

Six of the seven planned books have been published, and the seventh will be titled Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , although a publishing date is not yet known. The previous (sixth) book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was issued in an English language version on 16 July 2005.

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

Origins and publishing history

In 1990, J. K. Rowling was on a crowded train from Manchester to London when the idea for Harry simply "walked" into her head. She wrote the ideas down on a spare napkin to keep them fresh in her mind. Rowling gives an account of the experience on her website saying, "I had been writing almost continuously since the age of six but I had never been so excited about an idea before. I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, and all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me". That evening, the author began the pre-writing for her first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, a semi-detailed plan that would include the plots of each of her seven envisioned books, in addition to an enormous amount of biographical and historical information on her characters and universe.

Read more at Wikipedia.org