and the Sorcerer’s Stone (1997; published asHarry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in England), which opens as Harry approaches his eleventh birthday.

An orphan, Harry lives in the suburban English home of his mother’s sister, Petunia Dursley, and her husband, Vernon. Their house is spacious and comfortable, but not for Harry. Although the Dursleys are comparatively well-off, they treat Harry as poorly as the wicked stepmother treats Cinderella in the classic fairy tale. They give him cast-off clothes, make him do more than his share of chores, exclude him from special family activities, and virtually ignore him on Christmas and his birthday. Meanwhile, they lavish gifts and attention on their only child, Dudley, who, like Cinderella’s stepsisters, is a selfish and mean-spirited lout whose greatest joy is to torment Harry.

Harry seems to be resigned to a future of loneliness and drudgery. However, the night that he turns eleven, his life changes dramatically: A wondrous giant named Hagrid appears and reveals to him that he is not only a wizard but also a famous one. When Harry was an infant, his parents died trying to protect him from the powerful dark wizard Lord Voldemort. Voldemort also tried to kill Harry but failed and lost his powers in the attempt. Harry is thus both the only wizard ever to survive a battle with Voldemort and the apparent vanquisher of the most dangerous force in the magical world. For these reasons, he learns, the name “Harry Potter” is famous and revered among witches and wizards throughout the world.

Hagrid’s main mission that first night, however, is to tell Harry that he is now old enough to enter Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, whose seven-year program trains young wizards and witches in the skills that they will need to pursue productive lives in the magical world when they become adults. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone takes Harry through his first year at Hogwarts, and each succeeding novel takes him through another school year. The fact that Rowling planned the series of seven novels in advance gives them a unity, complexity, and consistency that are unusual in multivolume series. Indeed, it might be fair to regard the whole series as a single novel.

It would be an overstatement to say that all the Potter novels follow a formula. However, certain patterns characterize each of them. For example, each book typically opens with Harry experiencing another miserable summer in the Dursleys’ home and longing to return to Hogwarts. After he arrives at the school, he links up with his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, with whom he discovers and gradually solves a major new mystery. Each book culminates in a terrifying face-to-face encounter between Harry and Voldemort, whose origins and fates increasingly appear to be intertwined.

Despite the similarity in the novels’ plots, the individual stories have steadily taken on darker themes. Each time that Lord Voldemort reappears, he commits nastier crimes, and some of these result in the deaths of major characters. Meanwhile, Harry’s passage through his first five years at Hogwarts is far from smooth. During his first two years, his experiences are mainly pleasant. He revels in finding a home in which he feels he belongs, in having close friends, and in being surrounded by people who admire and like him. His clashes with the sinister professor of potions, Severus Snape, who seems to have it in for him, and his bullying rival, Draco Malfoy, are merely distractions.

In the later novels, however, and especially in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry’s problems become more serious. As his reputation as a powerful wizard grows with each of his encounters with Voldemort, so do suspicions regarding his motives. Which side is he on? Even he becomes unsure. His fifth year at Hogwarts is by far his most difficult. He is troubled by frightful dreams in which he seems to be Voldemort. While he is sure that Voldemort is again returning, he finds few people who believe him, and even the headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, seems to shun him. Also, Harry begins the school year with a cloud hanging over his head from an incident that occurred at the end of the previous year in which another student was killed by Voldemort. Although Harry tried to save the student and eventually repelled Voldemort’s attack, many people think he was responsible for the death. For the first time, Harry is not eager to return to Hogwarts.

While Harry experiences increasing doubts about his place in the wizarding world, he also experiences the normal adolescent stresses of puberty. He has sudden mood changes, flies into rages against his friends, and makes a complete hash of his first attempts to develop a relationship with a girl, Cho Chang. To make matters even worse, an official from the Ministry of Magic, Dolores Jane Umbridge, comes to Hogwarts and manages to displace Dumbledore. Under her repressive administration, Hogwarts becomes as unpleasant a place in which to live as the Dursleys’ home.

Despite the dark themes in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the book is also full of fun. Comic moments pervade all the novels, in which humorous elements are accentuated by the strong contrasts among many of the characters. For example, although neither the prim Professor McGonagall nor the self-righteous Professor Umbridge is inherently funny, when pitted against each other, they set off comic sparks. In her role as “High Inquisitor” at Hogwarts, Umbridge attempts to interfere in McGonagall’s class, but the latter’s masterful rebuff is a comic high point. Additional comic relief is provided by Ron Weasley’s twin brothers, Fred and George, whose main ambition in life is to run a magic joke shop. Fred and George are classic school cutups whose mischievous pranks are accentuated by magic. Another comic high point in the novel comes when the brothers decide they have had enough of the new regime at Hogwarts and make a spectacular departure after turning the main building into a swamp.

Although the Potter stories are set amid a world of witchcraft and wizardry, there is much more to them than magic. The books can, for example, be read as exemplars of English boarding-school fiction, a literary genre that goes back at least as far as Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s School Days (1857). Much of what Harry and his friends experience at Hogwarts has little or nothing to do with magic. Hogwarts students get homesick, make friends and enemies, develop crushes, participate in intramural house rivalries, have problems with their teachers, and fret over their homework and end-of-year exams. While the possibility of magic always looms over the stories, it does not drive all the action. Indeed, an admirable feature of Rowling’s plots is her restraint in the use of magic.

One need not look far to understand what makes these books attractive to readers. The theme of an oppressed orphan child being lifted to prosperity and fame gives the books a strong Dickensian flavor that appeals to both children and adults. Added to this is the attraction of the marvelous world of magic that Harry enters—it is a world of powerful wizards, people flying on broomsticks, ghosts gliding through school passageways, flying cars, werewolves, dragons, unicorns, and other magical creatures.

Rowling sets certain limits on the use of witchcraft and magic. Some of these are made explicit, such as the Ministry of Magic rule that forbids Hogwarts students from practicing magic during their summer breaks. When Harry returns to the Dursleys’ during the summer, he again becomes an ordinary boy and must struggle to refrain from using his magical powers to alleviate his suffering.

Other limits that Rowling places on magic in her stories are more subtle; in many situations characters with magical powers simply do not use them. Why, one might wonder, would people with magical powers ever do any work or lack for anything they desire? For example, why do not the members of the impoverished Weasley family simply wave their magical wands to acquire wealth? Likewise, why does a student as bright as Hermione bother studying, when she could seemingly conjure a spell that instantly puts all the knowledge she needs into her head? Why do the players in games of quidditch (a team sport similar to basketball in which participants fly on broomsticks) bother practicing?

As marvelous as the magical world is, however, Harry learns that what really matters are the bonds of friendship and loyalty. While Harry is clearly the central character throughout the series, his best friends—Ron and Hermione—participate in most of his adventures and share in the often considerable perils that he encounters. Each of them has strengths that the others lack, and their strengths are offset by flaws and limitations with which young readers can easily identify. For example, Harry wears glasses, has impossibly unruly hair, is at best an average student, and is hopelessly awkward when he is near Cho Chang. Ron is a mediocre student burdened with an unattractive surname that lends itself to ridicule and is constantly embarrassed by his family’s poverty, which is evident in his hand-me-down school robes and even his wand (part of every student’s required equipment). Hermione is easily the brightest of the group and probably the best student in the entire class. However, she is not conventionally pretty, has a reputation as a priggish know-it-all, and comes from a muggle (nonmagical) family. These three characters and other Hogwarts students are—apart from their magical powers—ordinary children, and young readers can find characters who match their own friends and enemies.

An attraction of the books to older readers is the profusion of interesting adult characters, who range from the guileless giant Hagrid to the strict, no-nonsense professor of transfiguration, Minerva McGonagall, and the sinister professor of potions, Severus Snape. Especially interesting is the headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, who is a wizard even more powerful than Voldemort and one who appears to be almost all-knowing and infinitely wise. However, the adult characters—like the children—have their flaws, and their behavior cannot always be predicted. Even Dumbledore is not perfect; in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenixhe makes a terrible mistake that leads to a tragic result. As powerful a wizard as he is, even he cannot correct his mistake and undo the damage. When characters die in the Potter novels, they stay dead. This fact gives the books, especially the fourth and fifth titles, a dark undercurrent that is a deliberate attempt on Rowling’s part to show that evil can have terrible consequences.

The proportions of the Harry Potter phenomenon defy ready comparisons. Numbers associated with the books are staggering: All five books have been number-one best-sellers and have set many sales records. The films made from the first two books grossed nearly one billion dollars, and Rowling rose from near-poverty to become the richest woman in Great Britain in less than a decade. Equally impressive has been the exponential growth of each title’s sales: The first book was published with an initial print run of 50,000 copies; the second book, 250,000 copies; the third book, 500,000 copies; the fourth book, 3.8 million copies; and the fifth book, 6.8 million copies. In July, 2000,Publisher’s Weekly proclaimed Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire the “fastest-selling book in history,” and all four Harry Potter books ranked at or near the tops of many best-seller lists simultaneously. Before Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out, worldwide sales of all editions in all languages of the previous four books topped 116 million copies and were continuing at a rapid clip. When the fifth book was finally released in June, 2003, it set new records, even though its thirty-dollar price made it one of the highest-priced children’s books ever published.

Another interesting, and perhaps significant, trend in the ongoing Potter series is the steadily increasing size of the books. Weighing in at 309 pages, the first book challenged industry preconceptions of how much prose children were willing to read. The second book’s 341 pages represented merely an incremental increase in length; however, the third book’s 435 pages represented a more substantial rise, and the fourth book’s 734 pages almost defied belief. At 191,000 words (the publisher’s figure), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is slightly longer than Dickens’s Great Expectations (1860-1861), two and one-half times the length of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), and about four or five times the length of a standard children’s novel. Conventional wisdom in the children’s book-publishing industry long held that few children were willing to read books of that length. Nevertheless, most young Harry Potter fans have read every book as fast as they could, reread it at least once, and then demanded to know when the next book would be available. With nearly one-half million words of Harry Potter under their belts already, young readers were not intimidated by the 255,000 words of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Rowling has sparked a revolution—and one of nearly global proportions—in children’s reading habits. After children read her Potter books as many times as they can stand, they generally look around for other books to read—something that Rowling herself has repeatedly urged them to do. The result has been a measured increase of children’s books sales generally of about 20 percent. Classic works on similar themes, such as C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia novels, have enjoyed major resurgences in popularity. There is no reason to believe that the reading habits young Harry Potter fans are developing now will not carry forward into the future. It may be that someday J. K. Rowling will be best remembered for her contributions to improving adult literacy.

Review Sources

Booklist 99, no. 21 (July 1, 2003): 1842-1843.

New Statesman 132, no. 4645 (July 7, 2003): 49-50.

The New York Times, June 21, 2003, p. A1.

The New York Times Book Review, July 13, 2003, p. 13-14.

Publishers Weekly 250, no. 26 (June 30, 2003): 79.

Time 161, no. 26 (June 30, 2003): 60.

The Times Literary Supplement, July 4, 2003, p. 23.

The Wall Street Journal, June 27, 2003, p. W13.

Series

From the outset, Rowling planned the "Harry Potter" series to consist of seven books, each representing a year of Harry's education at Hogwarts. The series tracks the lives of the main characters—Harry, Ron, and Hermione—through each novel, continuing the storyline from one book to the next. One way to view the series is to think of it as a single book, with each novel serving as a chapter. Although each "Harry Potter" book can be read independently, several threads interconnect the series, with each successive novel advancing the characters and the plot. The opening chapters of each book provide a brief recap of events from previous books, keeping readers informed of past plot developments and serving as an introduction for new readers. As the series nears its conclusion, major plot points and themes converge towards the final showdown between Harry and Voldemort. Rowling uses foreshadowing to engage readers' interest in the climaxes and resolutions that unfold in the remaining books.

Third-Person Limited Omniscient Point of View

Although the novel is written from a third-person perspective, much of the story is revealed through Harry's viewpoint. Using a third-person limited omniscient point of view, an author narrates events from an external perspective but reveals the thoughts and feelings of one or more characters. Instead of presenting information solely through characters' dialogues, observations, or actions, Rowling allows readers to experience Harry's internal thoughts. For instance, while still at the Dursleys, Harry sits quietly on a swing, reflecting on Cedric's death in the graveyard; many scenes mirror this initial insight into Harry's internal struggles, as he begins to search within himself for answers rather than immediately consulting Ron and Hermione, as he did in earlier books. On multiple occasions, Harry chooses not to confide in his friends until he has thoroughly contemplated his issues. Sometimes, Harry is unsure why he withholds information from his friends: "He was not really sure why he was not telling Ron and Hermione exactly what was happening…." Rowling writes. However, he eventually shares his major concerns with his friends, who then discuss strategies for addressing those problems.

• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was published in an unabridged audio CD format by the Listening Library in 2003. Jim Dale narrates the role of Harry Potter. This audio CD is easily accessible through bookstores and online retailers.

Sources

Barfield, Steven. "Fantasy and the Interpretation of Fantasy in Harry Potter." Topic: The Washington and Jefferson College Review, Vol. 54, Fall 2004, p. 30.

Bloom, Harold. "Can 35 Million Book Buyers Be Wrong? Yes." Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2000, p. A26.

Byam, Paige. "Children's Literature or Adult Classic? The Harry Potter Series and the British Novel Tradition." Topic: The Washington and Jefferson College Review, Vol. 54, Fall 2004, pp. 7-13.

Byatt, A.S. "Harry Potter and the Childish Adult." New York Times, July 7, 2003, p. A13.

Christian Broadcasting Network, www.cbn.com (June 4, 2005).

Diffendal, Lee Ann. "Questioning Witchcraft and Wizardry as Obscenity: Harry Potter's Potion for Regulation." Topic: The Washington and Jefferson College Review, Vol. 54, Fall 2004, p. 60.

Hensher, Philip. "A Crowd-Pleaser But No Classic." Spectator, Vol. 292, June 28, 2003, pp. 30-31.

Leonard, John. "Nobody Expects the Inquisition." New York Times, July 13, 2003, p. 13.

McEvoy, Kathleen. "Aesthetic Organization: The Structural Beauty of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series." Topic: The Washington and Jefferson College Review, Vol. 54, Fall 2004, p. 21.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Scholastic Press, 1999.

―――――――. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Scholastic Press, 2000.

―――――――. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Scholastic Press, 1999.

―――――――. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Scholastic Press, 1998.

―――――――. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Scholastic Press, 2003.

Safire, William. "Besotted with Potter." New York Times, January 27, 2000, p. A27.

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994; originally published separately in 1954 and 1955.

Yaggi, Miranda Maney. "Harry Potter's Heritage: Tolkien as Rowling's Patronus Against the Critics." Topic: The Washington and Jefferson College Review, Vol. 54, Fall 2004, pp. 33-45.

Further Reading

Anatol, Giselle Liza, editor. Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays. Praeger, 2003.

This anthology of essays explores various interpretations of the "Harry Potter" series, providing evidence that the books are considered more than just children's stories.

Becker, Beverley C. Hit List for Children II: Frequently Challenged Books. American Library Association, 2002.

This collection reviews over forty titles, including the "Harry Potter" series up to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, discussing the reasons behind their controversial reception and offering biographical and critical analyses.

Colbert, David. Magical Worlds of Harry Potter: A Treasury of Myths, Legends, and Fascinating Facts. Berkley, 2003.

Colbert presents an extensive reference guide to the mythological, literary, and historical allusions in Rowling's novels.

J.K. Rowling's Official Site, www.jkrowling.com (June 4, 2005).

Rowling claims authorship of all the content on this website, addressing her vast fanbase with information about past and upcoming "Harry Potter" books, biographical details, and responses to rumors.

Kirk, Connie Ann. J. K. Rowling: A Biography. Greenwood Press, 2003.

Kirk delves into the "Harry Potter" series to shed light on various aspects of Rowling's life, the creation of her characters, and how these characters might relate to her personal experiences. The biography also offers numerous interpretive strategies for understanding the series.

Neal, C. W., The Gospel According to Harry Potter: Spirituality in the Stories of the World's Most Famous Seeker, Westminster John Knox Press, 2002.

Neal adopts a distinctly positive stance towards the "Harry Potter" series by exploring the moral lessons embedded in Rowling's stories. Although approached from a clearly Christian viewpoint, this book addresses concerns from religious groups about the presence of magic in the novels.