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Harry Potter - A History of Magic
Harry Potter: A History of Magic is the official eBook of the once-in-a-lifetime exhibition from the brilliant curators of the British Library. It promises to take readers on a fascinating journey through the subjects studied at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - from Alchemy and Potions classes, right through to Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures.
Each chapter showcases a treasure trove of artefacts from the British Library and other collections around the world, beside exclusive manuscripts, sketches and illustrations from the Harry Potter archive. There's also a specially commissioned essay for each subject area by an expert, writer or cultural commentator, inspired by the contents of the exhibition - absorbing, insightful and unexpected contributions from Steve Backshall, the Reverend Richard Coles, Owen Davies, Julia Eccleshare, Roger Highfield, Steve Kloves, Lucy Mangan, Anna Pavord and Tim Peake, who offer a personal perspective on their magical theme.
Readers will be able to pore over ancient spell books, explore amazing illuminated scrolls that reveal the secret of the Elixir of Life, and through its unique design and functionality examine vials of dragon's blood, mandrake roots, painted centaurs and a genuine witch's broomstick, in an interactive digital book that shows J.K. Rowling's magical inventions alongside their cultural and historical forebears.
Each chapter showcases a treasure trove of artefacts from the British Library and other collections around the world, beside exclusive manuscripts, sketches and illustrations from the Harry Potter archive. There's also a specially commissioned essay for each subject area by an expert, writer or cultural commentator, inspired by the contents of the exhibition - absorbing, insightful and unexpected contributions from Steve Backshall, the Reverend Richard Coles, Owen Davies, Julia Eccleshare, Roger Highfield, Steve Kloves, Lucy Mangan, Anna Pavord and Tim Peake, who offer a personal perspective on their magical theme.
Readers will be able to pore over ancient spell books, explore amazing illuminated scrolls that reveal the secret of the Elixir of Life, and through its unique design and functionality examine vials of dragon's blood, mandrake roots, painted centaurs and a genuine witch's broomstick, in an interactive digital book that shows J.K. Rowling's magical inventions alongside their cultural and historical forebears.
- GenresFantasy
Hardcover
Published January 1, 2018
7 people are currently reading
75 people want to read
About the author
J.K. Rowling
672 books233k followersSee also: Robert Galbraith
Although she writes under the pen name J.K. Rowling, pronounced like rolling, her name when her first Harry Potter book was published was simply Joanne Rowling. Anticipating that the target audience of young boys might not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name. As she had no middle name, she chose K as the second initial of her pen name, from her paternal grandmother Kathleen Ada Bulgen Rowling. She calls herself Jo and has said, "No one ever called me 'Joanne' when I was young, unless they were angry." Following her marriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business. During the Leveson Inquiry she gave evidence under the name of Joanne Kathleen Rowling. In a 2012 interview, Rowling noted that she no longer cared that people pronounced her name incorrectly.
Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer, and Anne Rowling (née Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Bristol. Her mother Anne was half-French and half-Scottish. Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. They married on 14 March 1965. Her mother's maternal grandfather, Dugald Campbell, was born in Lamlash on the Isle of Arran. Her mother's paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was awarded the Croix de Guerre for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during the First World War.
Rowling's sister Dianne was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. Her headmaster at St Michael's, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the Harry Potter headmaster Albus Dumbledore.
As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would usually then read to her sister. She recalls that: "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee." At the age of nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales. When she was a young teenager, her great aunt, who Rowling said "taught classics and approved of a thirst for knowledge, even of a questionable kind," gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books.
Rowling has said of her teenage years, in an interview with The New Yorker, "I wasn’t particularly happy. I think it’s a dreadful time of life." She had a difficult homelife; her mother was ill and she had a difficult relationship with her father (she is no longer on speaking terms with him). She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother had worked as a technician in the science department. Rowling said of her adolescence, "Hermione [a bookish, know-it-all Harry Potter character] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." Steve Eddy, who taught Rowling English when she first arrived, remembers her as "not exceptional" but "one of a group of girls who were bright, and quite good at English." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books.
Although she writes under the pen name J.K. Rowling, pronounced like rolling, her name when her first Harry Potter book was published was simply Joanne Rowling. Anticipating that the target audience of young boys might not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name. As she had no middle name, she chose K as the second initial of her pen name, from her paternal grandmother Kathleen Ada Bulgen Rowling. She calls herself Jo and has said, "No one ever called me 'Joanne' when I was young, unless they were angry." Following her marriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business. During the Leveson Inquiry she gave evidence under the name of Joanne Kathleen Rowling. In a 2012 interview, Rowling noted that she no longer cared that people pronounced her name incorrectly.
Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer, and Anne Rowling (née Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Bristol. Her mother Anne was half-French and half-Scottish. Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. They married on 14 March 1965. Her mother's maternal grandfather, Dugald Campbell, was born in Lamlash on the Isle of Arran. Her mother's paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was awarded the Croix de Guerre for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during the First World War.
Rowling's sister Dianne was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. Her headmaster at St Michael's, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the Harry Potter headmaster Albus Dumbledore.
As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would usually then read to her sister. She recalls that: "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee." At the age of nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales. When she was a young teenager, her great aunt, who Rowling said "taught classics and approved of a thirst for knowledge, even of a questionable kind," gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books.
Rowling has said of her teenage years, in an interview with The New Yorker, "I wasn’t particularly happy. I think it’s a dreadful time of life." She had a difficult homelife; her mother was ill and she had a difficult relationship with her father (she is no longer on speaking terms with him). She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother had worked as a technician in the science department. Rowling said of her adolescence, "Hermione [a bookish, know-it-all Harry Potter character] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." Steve Eddy, who taught Rowling English when she first arrived, remembers her as "not exceptional" but "one of a group of girls who were bright, and quite good at English." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 15, 2025
I came to Harry Potter late!
My Year 5 teacher had a sweepstakes at the end of the year. If you made a contribution in class you would get one sweep. The more contributions you made, the more sweeps you would get.
The Philosopher's Stone was the prize I got! However, it was the only Harry Potter book that I read (I do not know why).
This is my ranking of the Harry Potter books, movies, Hogwarts library, plays, and the non-fiction books.
Books
1. Prisoner of Azkaban
2. Goblet of Fire
3. Deathly Hallows
4. Chamber of Secrets
5. Half-Blood Prince
6. Philosopher's Stone
7. Order of the Phoenix
*None of the books or movies are 'bad'. I just like the others more!
Movies
1. Prisioner of Azkaban
2. Chamber of Secrets
3. Deathly Hallows pt.1
4. Goblet of Fire
5. Philosopher's Stone
6. Deathly Hallows pt.2
7. Half-Blood Prince
8. Order of the Phoenix
There are also differences between the books and the movies:
1. Voldemort. He is SO scary in the books. His eyes are red slits and he is sub-human. In the movies I am not so sure. He is a bit of a meme. And he takes SO LONG to say Avada Kedavra.
2. Harry and Ginny's relationship. Why why why. Ginny is so cool in the books. But in the movies she is completely different. They also cut their break-up in the Half-Blood Prince. Movies and books are different mediums; however, I think their break-up was important in the character development of Harry and Ginny.
3. The detail. Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets are almost a scene-by-scene adaption of the books. However, Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix, and Half-Blood Prince are not! Again, movies and books are different mediums and these three books are A LOT longer: pp.636, pp.870, and pp.608. However, there is a lot missing! That the Deathly Hallows is in two parts means that it can breathe a bit more.
4. Snape. So different! The portrayal by Alan Rickman is so iconic that maybe it has overtaken book Snape? Because book Snape was very different. In Chamber of Secrets he tries to get Harry and Ron expelled (I think he does that in the movie too but he is a lot more unreasonable in the book), always always always takes away points from Gryffindor for non-sensical reasons, and did not mind Harry and James Potter dying if Lily was saved!
The books are ALWAYS better than the movies but the scene that I prefer in the movies is Snape's death. In the book he says: 'look at me' to Harry, but in the movie he says: 'you have your mother's eyes'. The movie is making explicit what is implicit in the book, but it was very, very, very moving (and the acting by Alan Rickman was excellent).
Hogwarts Library
1. The Tales of Beedle the Bard
2. Quidditch Through the Ages
3. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
*I read these three books, however, I think that the Fantastic Beats and Where to Find Them audiobook by Eddie Redmayne is supposed to be very good.
Plays
1. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
*I have not read the three Fantastic Beasts plays. I will update the review when I get around to reading them!
The non-fiction books
1. From the Wizarding Archive: Curated Writing from the World of Harry Potter
2. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: The Journey: Behind the Scenes of the Award-Winning State
3. Harry Potter: A History of Magic
*I have also not read the Behind the Scenes Documentary of Fantastic Beasts. I will update the review when I get around to reading it!
I came late to Harry Potter but I am happy that I did! If I did not meet the person who got me into Harry Potter maybe I would've never come to it. What a shame that would've been!
My Year 5 teacher had a sweepstakes at the end of the year. If you made a contribution in class you would get one sweep. The more contributions you made, the more sweeps you would get.
The Philosopher's Stone was the prize I got! However, it was the only Harry Potter book that I read (I do not know why).
This is my ranking of the Harry Potter books, movies, Hogwarts library, plays, and the non-fiction books.
Books
1. Prisoner of Azkaban
2. Goblet of Fire
3. Deathly Hallows
4. Chamber of Secrets
5. Half-Blood Prince
6. Philosopher's Stone
7. Order of the Phoenix
*None of the books or movies are 'bad'. I just like the others more!
Movies
1. Prisioner of Azkaban
2. Chamber of Secrets
3. Deathly Hallows pt.1
4. Goblet of Fire
5. Philosopher's Stone
6. Deathly Hallows pt.2
7. Half-Blood Prince
8. Order of the Phoenix
There are also differences between the books and the movies:
1. Voldemort. He is SO scary in the books. His eyes are red slits and he is sub-human. In the movies I am not so sure. He is a bit of a meme. And he takes SO LONG to say Avada Kedavra.
2. Harry and Ginny's relationship. Why why why. Ginny is so cool in the books. But in the movies she is completely different. They also cut their break-up in the Half-Blood Prince. Movies and books are different mediums; however, I think their break-up was important in the character development of Harry and Ginny.
3. The detail. Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets are almost a scene-by-scene adaption of the books. However, Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix, and Half-Blood Prince are not! Again, movies and books are different mediums and these three books are A LOT longer: pp.636, pp.870, and pp.608. However, there is a lot missing! That the Deathly Hallows is in two parts means that it can breathe a bit more.
4. Snape. So different! The portrayal by Alan Rickman is so iconic that maybe it has overtaken book Snape? Because book Snape was very different. In Chamber of Secrets he tries to get Harry and Ron expelled (I think he does that in the movie too but he is a lot more unreasonable in the book), always always always takes away points from Gryffindor for non-sensical reasons, and did not mind Harry and James Potter dying if Lily was saved!
The books are ALWAYS better than the movies but the scene that I prefer in the movies is Snape's death. In the book he says: 'look at me' to Harry, but in the movie he says: 'you have your mother's eyes'. The movie is making explicit what is implicit in the book, but it was very, very, very moving (and the acting by Alan Rickman was excellent).
Hogwarts Library
1. The Tales of Beedle the Bard
2. Quidditch Through the Ages
3. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
*I read these three books, however, I think that the Fantastic Beats and Where to Find Them audiobook by Eddie Redmayne is supposed to be very good.
Plays
1. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
*I have not read the three Fantastic Beasts plays. I will update the review when I get around to reading them!
The non-fiction books
1. From the Wizarding Archive: Curated Writing from the World of Harry Potter
2. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: The Journey: Behind the Scenes of the Award-Winning State
3. Harry Potter: A History of Magic
*I have also not read the Behind the Scenes Documentary of Fantastic Beasts. I will update the review when I get around to reading it!
I came late to Harry Potter but I am happy that I did! If I did not meet the person who got me into Harry Potter maybe I would've never come to it. What a shame that would've been!
November 17, 2024
Not what I was expecting, but a really interesting read. I was anticipating a take on one of the text books read in Harry Potter, but this was like a documentary showing some behind the scenes inspiration to JK Rowling of historical stories, artifacts, and arts that inspired the world she created.
March 16, 2025
DNF. I got about an hour into listening to this and just couldn't take a minute more.
November 23, 2024
I listened to the audiobook and have the book itself.
I had different expectations for the book. I had hoped on in-dept notes and background information that didn't come to light in the books. Like Pottermore and Harry Potter Wikia, but then in book format. Alas, no such thing. Still beautiful drawings and other interesting tidbits I suppose.
I had different expectations for the book. I had hoped on in-dept notes and background information that didn't come to light in the books. Like Pottermore and Harry Potter Wikia, but then in book format. Alas, no such thing. Still beautiful drawings and other interesting tidbits I suppose.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews