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He read her submission quickly and took only three days to take her on as a client; she was so thrilled, she read his reply eight times. Little had spoken to the new Bloomsbury Children's Book department at the 1995 Frankfurt Book Fair and knew they were looking for something special. "And Harry Potter was different," he says. Different and long. Most children's books are less than 40,000 words long; Philosopher's Stone was at least 65,000.
Cunningham, the editorial director starting the Bloomsbury children's list, saw the manuscript when it arrived from Little in June 1996. "There it was," he says, "a complete world with everything worked out and everything working, a world you could enter into as a child and lose yourself within." Cunningham needed Rowling and Harry to cast their spell over his colleagues. So he handed over the manuscript to Rosamund de la Hey, children's marketing manager.
She, too, was gripped. "It made me laugh out loud and stay up all night reading it," she says. The next day she and a colleague spent all afternoon making copies of the manuscript, stuffing them with Smarties candies and tying a ribbon around each one. These packages were delivered to the company directors whose support would be needed to buy the book. They adored it, and Cunningham bought it the following day.
An impediment to Rowling's sequel strategy was that, despite signing with Bloomsbury, she literally had no money. Fortunately, in early 1997 she received an £8,000 ($13,000) grant from the Scottish Arts Council, which considers children's fiction as important as adult literature. (Rowling's application was graded with exceptionally high marks, according to Wallace: A, A, A-, B+, A-).
Meanwhile, editorial discussions were proceeding about the first book: Should it be so long, and should it be illustrated throughout? The length of the book was reduced only slightly, finally, but Cunningham initially considered sticking with the convention of providing illustration.
"But Joanne felt from the beginning -- and I certainly agreed after I'd chatted to her -- that everybody wanted to have their own Harry in their mind," he says. Similarly, they talked about the cover. Neither wanted an adult fantasy image, so they chose a fun children's cover. Interestingly, every country has its own look for Harry Potter. Rowling's favorite covers come from the Netherlands, where you don't actually see Harry's face. In Britain, an additional "adult version" was released to assuage the concerns of the series' self-conscious older readers.
It was when the American audience embraced Harry Potter that the entire phenomenon went over the top. In the first weekend of British publication last summer, for instance, 20,000 copies of book three, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, reportedly were imported to the States via the Internet; and in its first two weeks of official U.S. publication in fall 1999, it sold half a million copies. Overall U.S. sales for Rowling's books are now approaching 20 million -- total. Everyone, Little says, was shocked by the speed and scale of the books' success. "I thought it would be big, but not that big," he says now. "I mean, there's never been anything bigger than this."
MY ATTITUDE TO HARRY POTER NOVELS
Harry Potter is now the most famous boy in the world. Children of all the countries admire him and hos adventures. It seems almost impossible to imagine a world without the Harry Potter novels. Not only did these books -- which chronicle the education of boy wizard Harry Potter -- become a worldwide phenomenon, they encouraged kids (and adults) in the video age to drop everything in favor of an unlikely object of obsession: books. While the fun of fantasy might be its otherworldliness, its power lies is the truths it reveals about the real world. So the magical world of Harry Potter, a world of flying cars and dragons, unicorns and magic potions, invisibility cloaks and evil powers, becomes real as readers discover truths about bravery, loyalty, choice, and the power of love. We believe in Harry because of his human qualities, especially his human frailties.
While reading the stories I found some realy wize quotetions.
"The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution." (The Sorcerer's Stone)
"...to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever." (The Sorcerer's Stone)
"It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends." (The Sorcerer's Stone)
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." (The Chamber of Secrets)
"You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you'll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no ... anything. There's no chance at all of recovery. You'll just—exist. As an empty shell." (The Prisoner of Azkaban)
"You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don't recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble?....You know, Harry, in a way, you did see your father last night....You found him inside yourself." (The Prisoner of Azkaban)
"Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery." (The Goblet of Fire, page 680)
"You place too much importance...on the so-called purity of blood! You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!" (The Goblet of Fire, page 708)
So as you see the books are realy worthy of reading. They would interest not only children, but also adults. Furthermore they are easy to read and to my mind in the nearest future The Harry Potter novels will even included in the list of literature in schools.
Список литературы
1. M. Hecker, T. Volosova, A. Doroshevich “English Literature” Moscow “Prosveshchenye” 1975
2. The Brief Encyclopaedia of English Literature “Alterexpress” 1998
3. G. Kirvatis, A. Surnaite “English Literature” Siesa publishing house “Kaunas” 1971
4. I. Arnold, N. Diakonova “Three Centuries of English Prise” Leningrad “Prosveshchenie” 1967
5. Copmleted by Yu. Golitsinsky “Great Britain” “KARO” St. Petersbourg 2000
6. The World Book Encyclopaedia (Volume 6) World Book Inc. 1994
7. Compton’s Encyclopaedia (Volume 7) Edition Compton’s Encyclopaedia 1991
8. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/writers/
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