The <a href="http://www.harryahistory.com/pictures">Harry, A History gallery</a>, thanks to Sam, is now open! Sam will be uploading pictures of events and such as we go on, here. Thank you, Sam, and I hope you enjoy! There are pictures from the first two readings of the book; some might have been grabbed from Facebook, and we tried to source where appropriate. Please email with any objections! And enjoy! I'm so excited, because this took testing about six different gallery systems and modifying this one out the eyeballs! WOO HOO!
One of the most rewarding (and, to my trivia-prone mind, most amusing) things I discovered while while researching this book was this picture, of the back of the first-edition of Philosopher's Stone:
Dumbledore is one of the first people physically described in the book. This is what the book says:
"He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice."
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
How did they get from that to this? Things I love about this drawing:
-The star on the book
-The book
-The pipe. A pipe!
-His red - red - hair.
-Circus pants!
-Tailor shoes!
-Scarf-like tie!
-No glasses!
Now, I know what you're thinking. Maybe this is not Dumbledore. Then give me ideas, fair fans. Who would this be besides Dumbledore? Who in book one smokes a pipe, wears purple, owns gold-and-red striped pants and a fluttery tie, has a handlebar mustache and a pentagrammed book? Is it Ollivander? Dedalus Diggle?
Update: Someone has suggested Nicholas Flamel. THIS IS ENTIRELY POSSIBLE. If still kinda strange.
The book and the pipe force me to think it's an attempt at Dumbledore: The wise wizard, the professor, the first instructor in magic we meet and clearly the most important. He is wearing a long purple coat, after all. And there's also this: very quickly, as in just a few editions later, this was on the back cover instead:
Much better, I think you'll agree. Notice the same underlying red-and-gold pants of the former Dumbledore, and the same cuffed sleeves, and slightly the same pattern on his tunic. just wonder who gave the illustrator the marching orders and what they contained. There is the possibility the illustrator hadn't read the text, but was just instructed to draw a wise wizard; then again, Harry Potter wasn't under wraps before publication then, so there's no reason not to pass on the text. Also the blurb on the back of the first edition is slightly amusing:
"Harry Potter thinks he is an ordinary boy - until he is rescued by an owl, taken to Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, learns to play Quidditch and does battle in a deadly duel. The Reason: HARRY POTTER IS A WIZARD!"
I love the Hogwarts factual error, and that he is rescued by an owl. The back was then changed to read:
"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. The Reason: HARRY POTTER IS A WIZARD!
Also, whereas the first edition contains quotes from known book people who had clearly been handed advanced reader's copies and asked for blurbs, the following editions contained quotes from the stellar reviews that began appearing almost immediately. Simply amazing, how quickly it all changed.
UPDATE #2: Man, I love the readers of this blog. I'm told it's at least 22 editions before this guy was taken off the back; the question remains, however, how long it took to get to the 22nd edition and whether they're up to something like the 50th edition now or the 500th edition, and how fast they got to 22. Of course the smart thing to do would be to ask Bloomsbury, so ask I shall. Had this guy ended up in my book I would have figured this out before then. I half want it to remain a mystery, though.
1. I'm so sorry it's been a light week here. When it's a light week here it means everything else is the opposite of light. Which is heavy. Which is not heavy in the sense that it's sad, it's heavy in the sense that it's busy.
SO BUSY.
I'm sorting through hundreds of emails, and then I'll move onto the comments and messages on Facebook etc. I beg patience. I SHALL get back to everyone who has emailed me thus far. This is a solemn promise. A couple hundred is manageable, but I still am begging of the patience.
2. Now that people have read the book, I realized while going through old videos on YouTube that some of the places talked about in the book are online and it would be funny to show you some of them. Can you guess the page number where the establishment in the beginning of this video appears?
3. This week I will make up for the lack of Photo Fridays.
4. This week I will post more vault entries. I have so many, but I feel a little guilty, because they have a habit of turning up in Scottish newspapers. Never the intention. I always wanted the fans to enjoy them and talk about them, but I didn't want to cause this strange dance of quotes for Jo in the media. Not even I realized the extent to which every single thing she has ever done or said ever, ever, is news. I was pretty sure she had said before that she believed in an afterlife, yet the comment regurgitated here was turned into a Scottish news article. Anyway, it's how it goes, I guess, and it's also one of the coolest things about her; you get the feeling that she really has learned to brush that stuff off, not that she has learned how to say she brushes it off and look like she means it. And it's not like anything in the interview would come anywhere near causing stories along the likes of some that have appeared about her in the past - you know, the ones we never put on Leaky, featuring what the press perceives to be wardrobe mishaps, or private pictures of her family on the beach. Gross. At least this interest is in, you know, her actual worldview and litview. Still, I always feel a little guilty that her very nice publicity people have to say, once in awhile, "Oh, what did that girl put on her site now?"
5. This week I will really start delving into the AMAZING stories you have been leaving here, which right now number 125. HOLY COW!
6. When do you think we should do another YouTube thing?
7. Thank you to everyone who has posted the book on their facebook! It gives me at thrill every time I see the cover staring back at me!
8. Some people in England, and a short while ago some good friends of my sister's in Australia, were the first people to report to me that they had received the book overseas. I just received the Australian edition (which looks almost identical to the US edition except the dimensions are slightly different, so it's halfway between trade paperback and mass market, feels more like a short, fat, soft brick in your hand) and am very jealous of those who have seen the British edition up close and personal. I'm sure I'll get a copy soon!
8.5. I've also seen a picture of the German edition, and it's amazing. Imagine in your head what my book might look like if it was hardcover and had more stereotypically German attributes, and you'll probably come close to envisioning the end result, which I hope to share with you soon.
9. The next foreign translation of the book will be in Norwegian. Norwegian! Norway, you have surprised me, you cold little strangely-shaped country, you. Germany and Norway, you are my new two favorite countries other than the US.
10. We are hopefully close to a spam-comments fix thanks to Chad Everett from Everitz Consulting, who is a god in the Movable Type world. If you knew about or were part of the Movable Type world before this post, you can congratulate yourself on being a geek, and I mean that sincerely and as a compliment. Geeks rule.
Hey guys: as a reminder, tomorrow there'll be a joint Harry, A History and We Are Wizards event at the Barnes & Noble at TriBeCa (97 Warren St, NY) at 6:30 p.m.. There's a Facebook event right here if you want to RSVP. Several members of the cast and crew of the film will be there, and after the bookstore event we will all be attending the 9 p.m. screening of the film at Cinema Village (you can buy tickets for that screening right here). You can also enter a contest to win tickets to the film right here!
I can't wait to meet more of you; see you tomorrow!
Well, this one's on you guys. Thank you for purchasing the book. Thank you for talking about it. Thank you for vlogging about it. Thank you for posting about it. Thank you for...whatever you did, because Harry, A History will debut at number 18 on the NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST this Sunday.
Thank you, guys. I don't quite know what else to say right now except that my sister demanded I get out of my sweatpants, put on some makeup, and meet her in the city for a drink. This seems to me to be the best idea of the century at the moment but it will take her being done with work for it to happen, and that will be awhile. So, for now, I will continue jumping around in my apartment shouting thank you to the Internets. If you live in Brooklyn you can probably hear it.
Thanks to the beautifully heartfelt things you guys have been saying on YouTube, here's our first Vlog Challenge Mashup about Harry, A History. Enjoy! And embed! :)
Hello! First of all, thank you to everyone who came to the Borders event on Wednesday. I had a great time; we'll have pictures up here shortly.
Second, in case you missed it, there is another NYC event coming: November 14, at the Barnes & Noble in TriBeCa (see sidebar for map). I'll be discussing the book and doing a signing, as well as talking with some of the cast and crew of We Are Wizards as we celebrate the opening of the movie's first theatrical release! The event is at 6:30, and we are all going to see the film at the Cinema Village Theater at a time to be determined (when the release the showtimes, we'll update it).
