No other author in the history of literature has succeeded in casting a spell as strong as J.K.Rowling’s. From the humble beginnings of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone , which was rejected by 12 publishing houses and finally published in 1997 by Bloomsbury with an initial print-run of just 1000 copies, J.K.Rowling and Harry Potter have travelled a long way together.
J.K.Rowling’s star began to rise when Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was awarded the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. When Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban were also awarded the prize (making J.K.Rowling the first person to win the award three times in a row), she actually removed her fourth novel from contention to allow other authors a chance. With the publication of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in 2000, every subsequent book smashed its previous publishing record as the fastest-selling book of all time, culminating in the much-anticipated release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on 21st July 2007, which sold a phenomenal 11 million copies on the first day alone.
With the assistance of the extraordinarily successful films, Harry Potter is now a global brand worth approximately £7 billion, and J.K.Rowling herself has became the first person to become a US dollar billionaire by writing books. The Harry Potter books have been translated into 65 different languages. Credited with igniting the interest of a whole generation of young readers, with inventing the crossover novel (a book published simultaneously with different covers for adults and for children), and with being the most influential woman in Britain in 2010, J.K.Rowling is probably the best known living author in the world today. Not bad for somebody who started their literary career as a single mother living on benefits.
So what’s all the fuss about? If you’re the sort of person who is immediately put off by hype or blockbusting success, are you missing out? Is the runaway success of Harry Potter down to magic or madness?
Well, it’s refreshing to say it, but J.K.Rowling is a woman who has well and truly earned her money and her fame. Whether you’re returning to the books as old favourites, whether you’re an adult curious to see what all the fuss is about, or whether you’re introducing them to your children for the first time, there’s a very special kind of magic trapped between every single page of the Harry Potter series. And its a magic built up through two very fundamental building bricks: plot and character.
The Harry Potter books work so well because J.K.Rowling has invested so much of herself in them. Each individual novel is meticulously planned and structured around a mystery that develops throughout the story, culminating in a final showdown in which everything becomes clear. They are in effect magical whodunits, packed to the brim with incident and adventure. But what becomes apparent as you work your way through the Harry Potter books is that each individual novel plays a key role in an overall plot, spanning the entire series. Early incidents, objects and characters take on a new significance as the story progresses. The very last chapter of the very last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was actually one of the first things that J.K.Rowling wrote. She knew more or less exactly what was going to happen to each of her characters right from the beginning of book one. This exceptional narrative foresight results in a watertight structure; each book is bound together through a seamless and utterly convincing plotline.
The intelligence and rationalisation of J.K.Rowling’s storytelling is perfectly balanced by her characters, who provide the heart and soul of the Harry Potter novels. What’s amazing about J.K.Rowling’s novels is the sheer quantity of characters that inhabit their pages. It’s a cast of epic proportions. There are obvious lead characters who play pivotal roles in the plot and become old friends over the course of the series, and secondary characters who fill the books with humour, warmth and controversy. But there’s also a whole host of characters who maybe only have a tiny role in one of the books; continual reminders of their existence throughout the series makes them every bit as real as Harry, Ron and Hermione. Each book introduces new characters, so that by the time we reach the ultimate showdown in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the reader is in the company of an entire army of friends built up by Harry over his seven years at Hogwarts.
Reading J.K.Rowling’s novels plunges you so completely into the world of Harry Potter and takes you on such a momentous journey, that, once you finally reach the end, the temptation is to reach straight out for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and relive the adventure all over again. There’s no denying that there’s a certain amount of madness to be found here amongst the hype, the obsession, the fortune and the record-breaking – but the magic that lies at the heart of Harry Potter is irresistible.