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Harry Potter Illustrated Collection
J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books are now presented in lavishly illustrated full-color editions. This pack contains the first three books of the Harry Potter series, along with the companion title, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
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About the author
J.K. Rowling
583 books234k 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 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 29, 2019
This review is for the illustrated version of Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them.
I read the original version a few years back and was disappointed (and boggled) that there weren't any images of the creatures to go along with the descriptions. This version is automatically an improvement just for having illustrations of the creatures, but only some of these images are worthwhile. Several of the images don't even clearly show the creature! Again, I am boggled by this nonsensical offering.
There are much better references and visuals of the creatures in The Art Of The Film Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them by Dermot Power.
I read the original version a few years back and was disappointed (and boggled) that there weren't any images of the creatures to go along with the descriptions. This version is automatically an improvement just for having illustrations of the creatures, but only some of these images are worthwhile. Several of the images don't even clearly show the creature! Again, I am boggled by this nonsensical offering.
There are much better references and visuals of the creatures in The Art Of The Film Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them by Dermot Power.
August 3, 2018
I haven't got the illustrated version of Fantastic Beasts, but I do own and have read the three others in this collection and the illustrations are all fantastic and just add to the awesomeness of these stories. And if I had to pick a favourite it would be the Prisoner of Azkaban. As not only is it my favourite book but the details in the drawings are incredible. In particular the pencil drawing of Lupin near the end when he's leaving Hogwarts after being outed as a werewolf by Snape.
And honestly, this collection is a must buy/read for any serious Potterhead!!
And honestly, this collection is a must buy/read for any serious Potterhead!!
May 28, 2018
I have read books 1 and 2, but not 3 and 4 of the illustrated! I love the illustrations!! I like them better than the original illustrations.
February 1, 2020
Lexi says it had good details and I think that it was a good story. There were too many surprises and suspense in it. I liked the dragons part the best.
January 18, 2024
Classic Harry Potter stories with lovely illustrations. I've enjoyed them, and they make reading the books to my niece's a better experience.
December 10, 2018
The Sorcerer's Stone
Harry embarks on his wizarding journey, after the Dursleys' failed attempts to stop his enrollment to Hogwarts. Harry meets new people, friends and enemies, and he also meets the one that killed his parents but failed to kill him.
This action-packed fantasy book with elements of mystery and humor. This version of the book includes drawings by respected artist Jim Kay. I would recommend this book to anyone who would want to see how another pictures the first year of the Harry Potter Series.
Chamber of Secrets
Harry starts his second year in the magical school of Hogwarts. Not long before the school year began, there has been multiple attacks on the students by a mysterious monster. Harry, with the support of his friends, tries to apprehend the monster. He learns more about himself in the process.
This action-packed fantasy book with elements of mystery and humor. This version of the book includes drawings by respected artist Jim Kay. I would recommend this book to anyone who would want to see how another pictures the second year of the Harry Potter Series.
Harry embarks on his wizarding journey, after the Dursleys' failed attempts to stop his enrollment to Hogwarts. Harry meets new people, friends and enemies, and he also meets the one that killed his parents but failed to kill him.
This action-packed fantasy book with elements of mystery and humor. This version of the book includes drawings by respected artist Jim Kay. I would recommend this book to anyone who would want to see how another pictures the first year of the Harry Potter Series.
Chamber of Secrets
Harry starts his second year in the magical school of Hogwarts. Not long before the school year began, there has been multiple attacks on the students by a mysterious monster. Harry, with the support of his friends, tries to apprehend the monster. He learns more about himself in the process.
This action-packed fantasy book with elements of mystery and humor. This version of the book includes drawings by respected artist Jim Kay. I would recommend this book to anyone who would want to see how another pictures the second year of the Harry Potter Series.
October 29, 2020
Well, well, well. I put the Jim Kay illustrated versions of the first three Harry Potter books (all that was available so far) on my Christmas list last year. They seemed like fun. And my husband and kids got them for me and they were so beautiful under the Christmas tree and then I looked through them, so carefully, and then put them on the shelf. Why? Because I read Harry Potter in the fall? Yeah, basically. I knew I’d get to them soon enough. It’s the fall! I pulled the books back down and started reading them, gingerly. As the fourth one is now available, I ordered that one and read it too before moving on to my old paperback copies to finish off the series for the year. And now I wait impatiently for the rest of the illustrated series to release, oh-so-slowly.
Honestly, I didn’t expect to like them very much. They seemed more like a collector’s item, and they are, because they are expensive and pieces of art as much as of literature. But so are many other picture books, just not as expensive. Not that they are expensive for money’s sake. Actually, at around $40 a piece and cheaper in a set and at many places (I paid more like $25 for my fourth one), they’re not more expensive than they should be: they’re enormous things (and I wonder what books five and seven will be like!), on thick, glossy paper, and colorful throughout, the illustrations extending to the very tips of the pages. I also, upon perusing the first one in a book store way back, was not that thrilled with the illustrations themselves. I thought they just weren’t my style.
I was wrong. I love these books. Let me first tell you the downside (besides price): they are too hefty and pretty to carry around with you. They take up a lot of lap space, and I feel like I’m handling a precious artifact as I try not to smudge the pages. (Perhaps cotton gloves is an idea?) That’s it. If you are okay with curling up at home to read these, using a table instead for your snack which you’ll eat with frequent napkinning, then they are definitely worth it for someone who loves Harry Potter. Even newbies could really enjoy reading Harry Potter the first time with these books, especially children. (Though later books in the original series get grimmer and more mature and are not really appropriate for children.)
Plus sides: first of all, the illustrations are beautiful and they are plentiful. Many pages just have a pattern set behind them, but there are illustrations about every other or every third turn of the page, it seems, and some of them are very elaborate. These are paintings, paintings that took research, planning, sculpting models, mocking, and time. They are also detailed, and I have enjoyed sitting and looking around at all those details, which does mean I’m reading slower, but it’s a fun experience. Other great things? Seeing the Wizarding World through new eyes. I have grown accustomed to seeing it through the eyes of Universal Studios, but not only does Jim Kay have a different imagination and the approval of J. K. Rowling, but he is able to do things on the page that a movie studio can’t do, due to limitations with money, CG, and casting. For example, Kay can present the characters just as they are described in the books. It’s a slightly different world with Kay than it is with Universal. And the best part? At least for an Anglophile? Though they are not straight-up UK editions (still The Sorcerer’s Stone and not The Philosopher’s Stone), they are put out by Bloomsbury and as far as I can tell, the British English remains in the text. I have been looking to buy a paperback set in the UK edition and have found it difficult, so I was super excited as I read these to see that the original language and expressions were left alone. I love it.
So, obviously a recommend. They are a bit of an investment, especially over a used paperback set (or one from your library), but I am really enjoying them. (Note: there is also a deluxe illustrated edition. They cost more and have cloth covers, but I can’t say what else.) This set has a place at the top of my bookshelves and I will continue to collect them. Book five—The Order of the Phoenix—is scheduled to come out in 2021. After that, who knows? I also want to point out that Minalima is releasing an illustrated version, one book at a time. The first one came out this year, but I have not held a copy in my hands, no thanks to the pandemic. It is a totally different style from the Jim Kay ones, with simpler, more animated-feeling illustrations and, so I hear, papercraft interaction? Like a fold-out letter, etc. They are in about the same price range, but dare I own another thing Harry Potter?
I believe I do.
***REVIEW WRITTEN FOR THE STARVING ARTIST***
Honestly, I didn’t expect to like them very much. They seemed more like a collector’s item, and they are, because they are expensive and pieces of art as much as of literature. But so are many other picture books, just not as expensive. Not that they are expensive for money’s sake. Actually, at around $40 a piece and cheaper in a set and at many places (I paid more like $25 for my fourth one), they’re not more expensive than they should be: they’re enormous things (and I wonder what books five and seven will be like!), on thick, glossy paper, and colorful throughout, the illustrations extending to the very tips of the pages. I also, upon perusing the first one in a book store way back, was not that thrilled with the illustrations themselves. I thought they just weren’t my style.
I was wrong. I love these books. Let me first tell you the downside (besides price): they are too hefty and pretty to carry around with you. They take up a lot of lap space, and I feel like I’m handling a precious artifact as I try not to smudge the pages. (Perhaps cotton gloves is an idea?) That’s it. If you are okay with curling up at home to read these, using a table instead for your snack which you’ll eat with frequent napkinning, then they are definitely worth it for someone who loves Harry Potter. Even newbies could really enjoy reading Harry Potter the first time with these books, especially children. (Though later books in the original series get grimmer and more mature and are not really appropriate for children.)
Plus sides: first of all, the illustrations are beautiful and they are plentiful. Many pages just have a pattern set behind them, but there are illustrations about every other or every third turn of the page, it seems, and some of them are very elaborate. These are paintings, paintings that took research, planning, sculpting models, mocking, and time. They are also detailed, and I have enjoyed sitting and looking around at all those details, which does mean I’m reading slower, but it’s a fun experience. Other great things? Seeing the Wizarding World through new eyes. I have grown accustomed to seeing it through the eyes of Universal Studios, but not only does Jim Kay have a different imagination and the approval of J. K. Rowling, but he is able to do things on the page that a movie studio can’t do, due to limitations with money, CG, and casting. For example, Kay can present the characters just as they are described in the books. It’s a slightly different world with Kay than it is with Universal. And the best part? At least for an Anglophile? Though they are not straight-up UK editions (still The Sorcerer’s Stone and not The Philosopher’s Stone), they are put out by Bloomsbury and as far as I can tell, the British English remains in the text. I have been looking to buy a paperback set in the UK edition and have found it difficult, so I was super excited as I read these to see that the original language and expressions were left alone. I love it.
So, obviously a recommend. They are a bit of an investment, especially over a used paperback set (or one from your library), but I am really enjoying them. (Note: there is also a deluxe illustrated edition. They cost more and have cloth covers, but I can’t say what else.) This set has a place at the top of my bookshelves and I will continue to collect them. Book five—The Order of the Phoenix—is scheduled to come out in 2021. After that, who knows? I also want to point out that Minalima is releasing an illustrated version, one book at a time. The first one came out this year, but I have not held a copy in my hands, no thanks to the pandemic. It is a totally different style from the Jim Kay ones, with simpler, more animated-feeling illustrations and, so I hear, papercraft interaction? Like a fold-out letter, etc. They are in about the same price range, but dare I own another thing Harry Potter?
I believe I do.
***REVIEW WRITTEN FOR THE STARVING ARTIST***
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews