The Complete Idiot's Guide to the World of Harry Potter

Table of Contents

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THE COMPLETE IDIOT’S GUIDE TO and Design are registered trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

International Standard Book Number: 978-1-59257-599-2

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007926846

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The book you hold in your hands gives you an in-depth look at the world of Harry Potter in only 16 chapters. In these pages, you won’t find character sketches, plot summaries, or details about who said what on which page of which novel. Instead, you get to explore J.K. Rowling’s genius even more deeply, discovering the background of terminology, characters, places, and ideas throughout her novels.

Every detail created by Rowling has been researched to determine how she may have chosen that particular setting, that incantation for a spell, or that age-old symbol that has appeared in fantasy literature for centuries. Greek, Roman, and Celtic mythological similarities are explored. Latin, Greek, French, and Italian phrases are translated. Literary and Biblical characters are reintroduced, as are folk- and fairytale patterns. And comparisons to J.R.R. Tolkien’s
The Lord of the Rings,
C.S. Lewis’s
The Chronicles of Narnia,
Ursula Le Guin’s
Earthsea,
and other fantasy classics are made.

Along the way, you’ll recall details of the wizarding world that you may have forgotten, or, if you’ve never read the
Harry Potter
novels, you’ll have a chance to read them with informed eyes.

This book can be read cover to cover, or it can be used as a resource, reading only the chapters or sections on which you want to learn more about the wizarding world. If you want to get a complete education, sit down at Chapter 1 and read straight through. By the end of the book, you’ll not only have an excellent understanding of the origins and background of Rowling’s work but also a greater appreciation of the genius of her creativity. Few of the hundreds of names, incantations, and places in her novels were selected without a reason.

To use this book as a quick, get-in-get-out resource, flip to the Table of Contents or Index and start with your most pressing questions. From there, read only the chapters and sections that appeal to you. You’ll find that each chapter and section is self-contained and does not rely on your having read the section or chapters before.

This book is divided into five parts:

Part 1, “Wizards, Monsters, and Creatures of All Sorts,”
teaches you a little wizarding lingo, introduces the most famous wizards and witches, and gives you the scoop on creatures of all shapes and sizes.

Part 2, “Where and How the Wizards Are,”
gets you acquainted with the way wizards live their everyday lives, from how they dress to what they eat to how they travel around town.

Part 3, “Magical Places,”
takes you on a tour of the wizarding hotspots in both London and Hogsmeade and gives you the lowdown on Hogwarts School and other wizard schools around the globe.