by Eliza Katsigiannopoulou
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling.
The first novel in the Harry Potter series and Rowling’s debut novel, it follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers his magical heritage on his eleventh birthday, when he receives a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry makes close friends and a few enemies during his first year at the school, and with the help of his friends, he faces an attempted comeback by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry’s parents, but failed to kill Harry when he was just 15 months old.
Most reviews were very favourable, commenting on Rowling’s imagination, humour, simple, direct style and clever plot construction, although a few complained that the final chapters seemed rushed.
The book was first published in the United Kingdom on 26 June 1997 by Bloomsbury. It was published in the United States the following year by Scholastic Corporation under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. It won most of the British book awards that were judged by children and other awards in the US.
It has been translated into at least 73 other languages, and has been made into a feature-length film of the same name, as have all six of its sequels. The novel has sold in excess of 120 million copies, making it the second best-selling novel of all time.
Joanne Rowling, (born1 July 1965), known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author, philanthropist, film producer, and screenwriter. She is the author of the Harry Potter series, which has won multiple awards and sold more than 500 million copies as of 2018,and became the best-selling book children’s series in history in 2008. The books are the basis of a popular film series. She also writes crime fictionunder the pen name Robert Galbraith.Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty Internationaln 1990 when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potterseries while on a delayed train from Manchester to London.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Philosopher%27s_Stone
