HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE

by JK ROWLING

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New softcover book. 223 pages. First published in softcover in 1997.This edition first published 2001

Harry Potter thinks he is an ordinary boy - until he is rescued by a beetle eyed giant of a man, enrols at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, learns to play Quidditch and does battle in a deadly duel. All because Harry Potter is a wizard! Follow the adventures of Harry Potter as he discovers the magical, the dangerous, the unpredictable world of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone begins near Harry's 11th birthday. Half-giant Rubeus Hagrid reveals Harry's history and introduces him to the wizarding world. The world J. K. Rowling created is both completely separate from and yet intimately connected to the real world. While the fantasy world of Narnia is an alternative universe and the Lord of the Rings’ Middle-earth a mythic past, the Wizarding world of Harry Potter exists alongside that of the real world and contains magical elements similar to things in the non-magical world. Many of its institutions and locations are in places that are recognisable in the real world, such as London. It comprises a fragmented collection of hidden streets, overlooked and ancient pubs, lonely country manors and secluded castles that remain invisible to the non-magical population of Muggles.

With Hagrid's help, Harry prepares for and undertakes his first year of study at Hogwarts. As Harry begins to explore the magical world, the reader is introduced to many of the primary locations used throughout the series. Harry meets most of the main characters and gains his two closest friends: Ron Weasley, a fun-loving member of an ancient wizarding family, and Hermione Granger, an obsessively bookish witch of non-magical parentage. Harry also encounters the school's potions master, Severus Snape, who appears to have a deep-seated and irrational hatred of him. The plot concludes with Harry's second confrontation with Lord Voldemort, who in his quest for immortality, yearns to gain the power of the Philosopher's Stone.

The book was published on 30 June 1997 by Bloomsbury in London with an initial print-run of 1000 copies, five hundred of which were distributed to libraries. Today, such copies are valued between £16,000 and £25,000. Five months later, the book won its first award, a Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. In February, the novel won the prestigious British Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year, and later, the Children’s Book Award. It also won most of the UK book awards that were judged by children,
The book was published in the United States under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by Scholastic Corporation in 1998. It reached the top of the New York Times list of best-selling fiction in August 1999, and stayed near the top of that list for much of 1999 and 2000.

Awards

• Winner 1997 Smarties Book Prize 9-11 Category
• Winner 1997 British Book Award: Children’s Book of the Year
• Winner 1997 Children’s Book Award

About the author

Joanne "Jo" Murray OBE, née Rowling, (born 31 July 1965), who writes under the pen name, J. K. Rowling, is a British author, best known as the creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series, the idea for which was conceived whilst on a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990. The Potter books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, and sold more than 400 million copies.

Although she writes under the pen name "J. K. Rowling", her name when her first Harry Potter book was published was simply "Joanne Rowling". Before publishing her first book, her publisher Bloomsbury feared that the target audience of young boys might be reluctant to buy books written by a female author. It requested that Rowling use two initials, rather than reveal her first name. As she had no middle name, she chose K. for Kathleen as the second initial of her pseudonym, from her paternal grandmother. The name Kathleen has never been part of her real name. Following her marriage, her legal name is Joanne Murray, which she uses when conducting her personal business. She calls herself "Jo" and says, "No one ever called me 'Joanne' when I was young, unless they were angry."

Aside from writing the 7 Harry Potter novels, Rowling is perhaps equally famous for her "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from living on welfare to multi-millionaire status within five years. The 2008 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £560 million (8 million), ranking her as the twelfth richest woman in Britain. Forbes ranked Rowling as the forty-eighth most powerful celebrity of 2007, and Time magazine named her as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fandom. She has become a notable philanthropist, supporting such charities as Comic Relief, One Parent Families, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, and the Children's High Level Group.

As a child, Rowling enjoyed writing fantasy stories, which she often read to her sister. "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it," she recalls, "Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee."

In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry "came fully formed" into her mind. "I really don't know where the idea came from", she told The Boston Globe, "It started with Harry, then all these characters and situations came flooding into my head." When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately.

In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher’s Stone with an initial print-run of 1000 copies, five hundred of which were distributed to libraries. Today, such copies are valued between £16,000 and £25,000. Five months later, the book won its first award, a Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. In February, the novel won the prestigious British Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year, and later, the Children’s Book Award. Its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in July, 1998. In October 1998, Scholastic published Philosopher’s Stone in the US under the title of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: a change Rowling claims she now regrets and would have fought if she had been in a better position at the time.

Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated £7 billion ( billion), and the last four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history. The series, totalling 4,195 pages, has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages.

The Harry Potter books have also gained recognition for sparking an interest in reading among the young at a time when children were thought to be abandoning books for computers and television, although the series' overall impact on children's reading habits has been questioned.

You may also be interested in the Harry Potter audiobook range, available from The House of Oojah

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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling