Where Were The Harry Potter Books Written

Room 552 At The Balmoral Hotel

Address: 1 Princes Street, Edinburgh EH2 2EQWebsite:

JK Rowling finished the seventh and final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, at the Balmoral Hotel. The Balmoral Hotel is a 5-star 19th century luxury hotel located next to the Waverley train station in Edinburgh. Rowling said she was feeling distracted at home and wanted to get away for a little while to finish the ending of her book. She managed to work in a hotel suite here and finish the book in secret with very few people knowing she was staying here.

After finishing the book, she famously graffitied a marble bust of the god Hermes. She scribbled the following on the bust: âJK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room on 11th Jan 2007â. Not surprisingly, Rowling did not get into any trouble for her vandalism and in fact, the bust is now proudly displayed in the suite behind glass. The suite was later renamed the JK Rowling Suite.

The Balmoral Hotel is a hotel and anyone can stay here for a price . You can even stay in the same room as the famous author. This beautiful suite is priced at about £1,000 a night and the outside of the door is decorated with an owl and a small golden sign bearing the name The J.K. Rowling Suite. Of course, you can book a regular room for much less!

Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets

The second installment in the Harry Potter series was published on July 2, 1998 in the United Kingdom and June 2, 1999 in the United States. It quickly rose to the top of bestseller lists in both countries and has since been translated into 65 languages. Like its predecessor, Chamber of Secrets won the Nestle Smarties book prize as well as several other honors including the American Library Associations Best Book for Young Adults, and the first-ever childrens book award from the Scottish Arts Council. As of 2012, the book has sold 77 million copies worldwide and been translated into 72 languages.

How Did Jk Rowling Become Famous

J.K. Rowling started writing about Harry Potter after graduating from the University of Exeter. After a brief marriage and the birth of her daughter, Rowling settled in Edinburgh and lived on public assistance between stints as a French teacher and writing. After many rejections, Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone was published to immediate success.

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Jk Rowling Harry Potter And Edinburgh

Before listing the places you can visit where Rowling wrote Harry Potter in Edinburgh, well share a bit of background about J.K. Rowling and her time in Edinburgh.

Joanne Rowling, aka J.K. Rowling, had the inspiration for what would become the Harry Potter series during a train ride from Manchester to London in 1990. She soon sketched out a rough plan for a 7-book series featuring a boy wizard. She saw it as a book series from the start and was obviously a woman with both imagination and ambition!

In 1991, she moved to Porto, Portugal to teach English following the death of her mother and the loss of her office job in Manchester. In Porto, she worked, wrote, got married, and had a daughter Jessica.

She left her Portuguese husband in 1993 and headed to Edinburgh Scotland with her baby daughter and the first three drafted chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopherâs Stone. She chose Edinburgh as that was where her sister and brother-in-law were living.

It was a rough time in Rowlings life with the failed marriage, loss of her mother, a young daughter to take care of, and little money. She went on welfare, worked on the book, sought treatment for depression, and completed a training program as a teacher. Her intention was to become a school teacher as she had no idea whether shed be able to sell her book or not. She had no idea that she would become one of the best-selling British authors of all time!

Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone

Harry first appears in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Starting in 1981, when Harry was just one year old, his parents, James and Lily, were murdered by the most powerful Dark Wizard, Lord Voldemort . He attempted to kill Harry too, but was unsuccessful and only left a lightning bolt shaped scar on Harry’s forehead. Voldemort’s body was destroyed, but his soul was not. Harry later learns that the reason why he survived was that his mother sacrificed herself for him, and her love was something that Voldemort could not destroy.

According to Rowling, fleshing out this back story was a matter of reverse planning: “The basic idea Harry … didn’t know he was a wizard … and so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn’t know what he was… That’s… When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry’s parents, and then he tried to kill Harryhe tried to curse him…. Harry has to find out, before we find out. And for some mysterious reason, the curse didn’t work on Harry. So he’s left with this lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead, and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard who has been in hiding ever since”.

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All The Harry Potter Books In Order: Your Jk Rowling Reading List

Of all the zeitgeist-defining fiction to come out of the past twenty years, perhaps none has been more universally beloved than the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. An incredibly imagined fantasy bildungsroman, it follows the eponymous boy wizard as he attends the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and contends with his destiny to fight the Dark Lord, Voldemort. Fortunately, he always has clever, loyal friends Ron and Hermione by his side plus the invaluable mentorship of eccentric but wise Hogwarts headmaster, Dumbledore.

As fellow Potterheads will know, its virtually impossible to rank these books from best to worst, since each one is brilliant in its own way. Thats why weve decided to simply present all the Harry Potter books in order of chronology/publication, hitting the highlights for longtime fans to happily reminisce and to help budding fans get a taste of the series genuine magic.

Heres a quick catalog of the series, so that you know what youre in for:

But Not All The Effects In The Harry Potter Movies Were Computer Generated

Animatronics were made for the actors to interact with on set, including baby mandrakes, Hedwig, the Monster Book of Monsters, and Buckbeak, which was used on-set for close ups. He could stare at you, his eyes could follow you, he could bow, and every one of his feathers was dyed and put in by hand, Newquist told PopMech. There are tens of thousands of them, and they look absolutely gorgeous. Other creatures were built to give the animators reference for lighting, like the giant Jack-in-the-Box from Prisoner of Azkaban and house elf Kreacher.

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Auctioneer Becomes A Magnet For Rare Harry Potter Books

Like a store out of JK Rowling’s imagination, rare artefacts brimming with magic keep turning up at the same auction house. It regularly trades in first editions of the debut Harry Potter book, fetching thousands for the seller, and offering literary history to the buyer. But how does the spell keep on being cast there?

There’s an irony here. For a franchise centred around “he who must not be named”, word of mouth has meant a tidy trade in Harry Potter books.

Jim Spencer, who some say has more than a passing similarity to a certain wizard, is a book specialist at Hansons Auctioneers. He’s had hundreds of emails from potential sellers since the business sold a first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in July 2019.

Most people, it turns out, have to be let down gently. They’re not quite sitting on the small fortune that only comes with the real McCoy. But he does promise to “check every single one” for the vital hallmarks.

Derbyshire-based Hansons has sold eight first edition “Stones”, with £68,000 the highest sum so far. Four were auctioned this month alone by the business which also has sales rooms in Banbury, London and Stafford.

The first they ever sold originally belonged to Staffordshire Libraries, and was discovered when Mr Spencer was asked to value a private collection in the county, into which the library copy had found its way.

Only 500 copies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone were printed in the first run, with 300 going to libraries.

Jk Rowling Shot Down One Of Alfonso Cuarns Ideas

Rowling wasnt precious about all of the details of her books . Inevitably, you have to depart from the strict storyline of the books, she told Radcliffe. The books are simply too long to make into very faithful films. But that didnt mean shed let everything slide: Sometimes I would dig my heels in on the funniest things, she said. Id say yeah, change the costume, thats not a problem And then all of a sudden Id say, Why would they do that spell? They wouldnt do that there.

Take, for example, one shot that Cuarón wrote into Prisoner of Azkaban, which Rowling called rather bizarre. I think Flitwick was conducting, and there were miniature people in an orchestra inside something, she told Radcliffe. I said to him, but why? I know its visually exciting, but part of what I think fans really enjoyed about the literary world is that there was a logic that underpinned it. There was always a logic to the magic, however strange it became. And I know its intriguing to go through the mouth of whatever it was and see these little people, but why have they done it? For you to film it, thats just what it feels like. Normally, with the magic, theres a point. So we had a bit of discussion.

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Best Harry Potter Books

Selecting the best of the Harry Potter books is akin to choosing among star-studded things. Why, every book in the said series is mind-blowing! However, the first three novels are the best, perhaps by virtue of chronological order. Philosophers Stone, which has been discussed previously, is the cream of the crop.

Author J.K. Rowlings vouchsafed the masterpiece Chamber of Secrets to her readers the book revolves around Harry Potter, unhappy with his hosts, after his encounter with the eccentric creature which delivers a doomy prediction.

In Prisoner of Azkaban, which is a literary dessert, figuratively, the prediction proves to be true after Potter returns to Hogwarts for another school term. A deadly prisoner and escapee is being tracked by prison guards who nourish themselves with others souls. In Potters fools paradise, Hogwarts is seemingly a haven.

Collecting Harry Potter First Editions

With the release of the latest Harry Potter movie, Harry and his friends are back in the lime light. The Harry Potter books are a phenomenon that has rarely been seen in the world. I could venture to say that there are very few books series that have been more read and more loved in our lifetime. More than 400 million copies have been sold worldwide, which is the highest of any book series of all time. Many adults who havent read the books cant quite understand the obsession, but for both kids and adults who have read them, its like a little sparkle comes into their eye if you mention the word. Not only is it a great story, but it got kids really passionate about reading again.

At the Boston Antiquarian Book Fair, where we were most recently exhibiting, we had our set of Harry Potter British First Editions, which always gets a great deal of interest.

Harry Potter First Editions

Many people desire to have a first edition set, but are not aware of the large price tag that these books are commanding. I thought I would take a moment to explain a few key factors when looking for Harry Potter first editions and some issue points for identification purposes.

Order of the PhoenixHalf Blood PrinceDeathly Hallows

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A truthful tour of HP inspirations would involve a stationery guide pointing a stick at a picture of my head, which would be zero fun and nobody would buy tickets. If Id genuinely been inspired by every old building, creepy alleyway, pub, graveyard and 1/2

underpass thats claimed, Id have spent my late 20s on a non-stop road trip between locations and I promise I didnt. I was mostly sitting in places I could get a cheap coffee/could afford the rent & making it all up. 2/2

Various other places claim to be sources of inspiration for Rowling owing, presumably, to their proximity to locations Rowling is known to have lived at previously or visited. One of these is Livraria Lello – a bookstore in Oporto, Portugal. The store has an impressive history, and has long speculated to be an inspiration for the Hogwarts library owing to the authors time living in the city. Rowling said that though she wishes shed visited the library, she knew nothing of its existence, and confirmed it has nothing to do with Hogwarts!

Livraria Lello, Oporto, long known to locals and tourists in the area as an inspiration for J.K. … Rowling, a claim now debunked by the ‘Harry Potter’ author.

Im laughing here. Before I started this thread I had no idea how many different streets were claiming to be the inspiration for Diagon Alley, but this is the first time Ive seen Knockturn Alley! Neither was based on any real place.

Arthur Weasley Was Supposed To Die

In a battle between good and evil this epic, not everyone would make it through alivethat would have led to very fluffy, cozy books, Rowling told Meredith Vieira. You know, suddenly I halfway through Goblet of Fire and suddenly everyone would just have a really great life and the plot would go AWOL.

Which is not to say that Rowling knew exactly who was on the chopping block. She thought about killing Arthur Weasley after he was attacked by Nagini in Order of the Phoenix, but instead opted to save him, partly because there were very few good fathers in the book. In fact, you could make a very good case for Arthur Weasley being the only good father in the whole series.

Instead, Lupina character she had no intention of killing when she began the booksand Tonks died during the final Battle of Hogwarts. I wanted there to be an echo of what happened to Harry just to show the absolute evil of what Voldemort’s doing, she said. I think one of the most devastating things about war is the children left behind. As happened in the first war when Harry’s left behind, I wanted us to see another child left behind. And it made it very poignant that it was newborn son.

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Quidditch Through The Ages

Or maybe it’s J.K. Rowling’s smash-hit sport, Quidditch, that tickles your fancy. Today, Quidditch is an actual sport played at over 100 colleges in the United States such is the strength of the grip that it’s exerted on our public imagination. But if you’re interested in the academic side of Quidditch, Rowling’s got you covered with Quidditch Through the Ages, which will tell you all that you ever wanted to know about the history and rules behind Quidditch.

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List Of Titles Of Harry Potter Books In Other Languages

This article is not part of the Harry Potter universe.

This page is part of the Harry Potter in translation series – a list of the Harry Potter book titles in languages other than the original English.

When adding or editing titles, please add a transliteration of the title in English, and the meaning, if different from the original.

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