Much more than just a Bestseller
The first Harry Potter book "Philosopher's stone" was published twenty years ago, on June 26th, 1997. At that time, it was still a children's book among many others. However, Harry Potter has been casting its feathers to a fantasy novel series that only exists once in the world. The author Joanne K. Rowling has become a star and Harry Potter is much more than just a children's book series.
To date, the Harry Potter series has sold 450 million copies. In 1997, no one could expect that. The Bloomsbury publishing house released just 500 copies with the first edition. The sale ran slow until after the second volume an American publishing house bought the rights for about 100,000 dollars and Harry Potter became world famous.
Nevertheless, the story actually started much earlier. In 1990, Rowling probably sat on a train to London when she became the brain for Harry Potter. "I could see Harry, this skinny little boy ... I was really excited about this idea and I was looking for a pen, but I did not even have an eyeliner, so I have just been thinking about it for four hours, the ideas bubbled through my head”, she said in the BBC documentary "Harry Potter and Me.
Today, Harry Potter is much more than just a bestseller. Some things that appear magical in the book have been projected to the real world. For example, the favourite sport of Harry called "Quidditch". The idea had two students from the USA in 2005. There is now an international federation and national leagues all over the world.
Moreover, Michael Jackson was a huge fan of Harry Potter. Therefore, he asked Rowling to compose a musical about the famous sorcerer's apprentice. Rowling, however, rejected this. Very impressive is also the fact that the track 9 3/4 actually exists. At the King`s Cross station in London, a signboard was installed. Some people try to walk through the wall here.
Harry Potter finally became an iconic with the shootings from 2001 on. All publications in total made over $ 7.7 billion. In addition, the Harry Potter universe includes numerous video games, a Lego edition, a theater play since 2016, a book in a book edition as well as a theme park called "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter" as part of the Universal's Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida.
