Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is 20
Fun facts about the beloved boy wizard
It’s hard to believe, but 20 years ago, the world of wizardry, magic and Muggles was unveiled to American audiences with the 1998 publication of J.K. Rowling’s young-adult fantasy, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” (A year earlier, the novel had been released in Great Britain as “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.”) A spell was cast and a pop-culture phenomenon born, with midnight bookstore parties packed with eager fans greeting each new book. And then came the blockbuster movies, which brought to visual life Diagon Alley, Gringotts Wizarding Bank, the Death Eaters and Lord Voldemort.
Scholastic on June 26 is republishing all seven Harry Potter books with new cover illustrations by Brian Selznick. To mark the 20th anniversary year, here are 20 fun facts about theboy wizard and the woman who created him.
1. The series has sold 500 million copies worldwide.
2. The first hardcover printing of “Sorcerer’s Stone” by Scholastic in September 1998 was 50,000 copies. Got a first edition? Biblio
is selling one (unsigned) for $2,500. (Much more expensive and coveted by collectors: “Philosopher’s Stone,” of which only 500 copies were printed in 1997.)
3. The seven books (not counting special editions or boxed sets) have spent a combined 1,739 weeks on USA TODAY’s bestselling Books list, with “Sorcerer’s Stone” logging the most at 481 weeks. Each book hit No. 1.
4. Rowling’s British publisher suggested Harry’s creator use the name J.K. Rowling so boy readers wouldn’t know she was a woman. (Her real name is Joanne Rowling and she goes by Jo.)
5. The British author went from struggling single mother to exceedingly rich and famous megastar (though one notoriously private about her fortune): In 2016, James B. Stewart in The New York Times estimated her worth at $1.2 billion.
6. Daniel Radcliffe (who’s now 28) was 11 when he was cast as Harry Potter in the movies. Harry, an orphan living with his horrid relatives the Dursleys, finds out on his 11th birthday that he is a wizard when he receives a letter saying he’s been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
7. Rowling has said that Hermione Granger, know-it-all and indispensable friend to Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, was inspired by Jo when she was a girl.
8. Mary GrandPre, who illustrated the original book jackets, based her drawing of bespectacled Harry on herself.
9. When placed side-by-side, Selznick’s seven new black-andwhite jackets form a single image spanning Harry’s complete journey. Fans can examine Selznick’s covers for such Potter talismans as Hermione’s time-turner; Harry’s owl, Hedwig; the white doe Patronus; and, Nagini, Voldemort’s snake.
10. Selznick based his drawing of Albus Dumbledore on Michelangelo’s Moses and a self-portrait by Leonardo da Vinci. Veronica Lake inspired Selznick’s vision of Fleur Delacour.
11. Potter fans delight in the names and terms that help make the wizarding world so much fun. Among Rowling’s inventions: Quidditch, for the broomstickflying soccerlike game that Harry excels at, and Horcrux, objects that play a crucial role in the final battle between Harry and his evil nemesis, Voldemort, who murdered his parents.
12. Not everybody loved Harry Potter: The novels often topped the American Library Association’s list of “Most Challenged Books” from those who thought they promoted witchcraft.
13. Spoiler alert: Voldemort reveals to Harry that his real name, Tom Marvolo Riddle, is an anagram for “I am Lord Voldemort.”
14. After the third Potter book (“Prisoner of Azkaban”) was published, the Scholastic team had in-house code names for the Harry Potter books to keep them secret. With Book No. 7 (“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”), for example, they used MLK (because the manuscript arrived around Martin Luther King Jr. Day).
15. While on a book tour in New York in 2007 for “Deathly Hallows,” Rowling revealed that Dumbledore, Hogwarts’ headmaster and Harry’s mentor, was gay.
16. In April 2013, “The Cuckoo’s Calling,” by an unknown mystery writer named Robert Galbraith, was published by Little, Brown. Despite good reviews, the detective novel sold fewer than 1,000 copies. When it was later revealed Rowling was Galbraith, the novel shot to No. 1 on USA TODAY’s bestseller list.
17. Rowling’s wizarding world lives on in spinoffs such as theme parks, the “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” movie sequel (due in November) and Broadway’s “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” which just won the Tony Award for best play.
18. Not to mention Pottermore, the site that introduces new Rowling “Hogwarts” stories and where fans can dive deep into Potter trivia. (Venture down Knockturn Alley and enter Borgin and Burkes...)
19. Not to mention Twitter, where Rowling regularly takes on President Donald Trump, Fox News and assorted (non-magical) trolls.
20. Book your ticket now: “Harry Potter: A History of Magic” opens Oct. 5 at the New-York Historical Society. The exhibit from the British Library, which includes everything from GrandPre’s original illustrations to costumes and set models from “Cursed Child,” runs through Jan. 27, 2019.