A manual typewriter, an Imperial Good Companion, made in Leicester. Not Rowling's own: she has said she typed the first Philosopher's Stone manuscript on a typewriter, retyping a whole chapter whenever she changed a paragraph. Photo W.carter, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. No free image of the book's own art exists.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
What it took directly
- statedHarry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997) took from a train ride back to London in 1990, after a weekend flat-hunting in Manchester"One weekend after flat hunting, I took the train back to London on my own and the idea for Harry Potter fell into my head." J. K. Rowling, interviewed by Heather Riccio, HILARY Magazine (before Half-Blood Prince's July 16, 2005 release)
- statedThe Mirror of Erised chapter took from the death of Rowling's mother, after she had begun the book; she wrote the chapter in her first week in Portugal"My feelings about Harry Potter's parents' death became more real to me, and more emotional. In my first week in Portugal, I wrote my favorite chapter in Philosopher's Stone - The Mirror of Erised." J. K. Rowling, interviewed by Heather Riccio, HILARY Magazine (before Half-Blood Prince's July 16, 2005 release)
- statedHarry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997) comes from her agent Christopher Little, who spent a year sending it out until Bloomsbury made an offer in August 1996"It took my agent, Christopher, a year to find a publisher. Many of them turned it down. Then finally in August of 1996, Christopher called to let me know that he had an offer from Bloomsbury." J. K. Rowling, interviewed by Heather Riccio, HILARY Magazine (before Half-Blood Prince's July 16, 2005 release)
- documentedHarry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997) comes from Alice, the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury chairman Nigel Newton, who read the sample chapter first and asked for more"He took it home but, instead of settling down with it himself, handed it to Alice, then eight years old." Nigel Newton, chairman of Bloomsbury, to The Independent, July 2, 2005
What it learned to do
- statedHarry Potter's surprise endings learned from Jane Austen's Emma"I have never set up a surprise ending in a Harry Potter book without knowing I can never, and will never, do it anywhere near as well as Austen did in Emma." J. K. Rowling, “From Mr Darcy to Harry Potter by way of Lolita”, Sunday Herald, May 21, 2000
The tradition it sits in
- statedHogwarts's four houses comes from the four classical elements: Gryffindor fire, Ravenclaw air, Hufflepuff earth, Slytherin water"in this case, I wanted them to correspond roughly to the four elements. So Gryffindor is fire, Ravenclaw is air, Hufflepuff is earth, and Slytherin is water" J. K. Rowling, interviewed by The Leaky Cauldron and MuggleNet, Edinburgh, July 16, 2005
- inferredHogwarts's house system comes from the British school tradition of houses"It is the tradition to have four houses" inferred — Rowling says “It is the tradition to have four houses” but does not name which tradition; British school houses are the reading this page takes, not hers
Where the whole form comes from
- statedThe Weasley family comes from Rowling's lifelong pull toward large families"the Harry Potter books were my chance to create my own, ideal big family, and my hero is never happier than when holidaying with the seven Weasleys." J. K. Rowling, “From Mr Darcy to Harry Potter by way of Lolita”, Sunday Herald, May 21, 2000
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