Infographic: The Harry Potter Series Turns 20!

Features Movies 4th May 2017 Jon Dingle 0

Harry Potter has become a household name around the world. On 26th June 2017, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone celebrates 20 years since...

Harry Potter has become a household name around the world. On 26th June 2017, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone celebrates 20 years since it was first published by Bloomsbury in 1997. An online cartridge company has produced an infographic showing the success of the books with a comparison to other successful books and subsequently the films, over the years.

Did you know that Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was originally turned down by 12 publishers before Bloomsbury snapped it up for an advance of only 1500 copies? That number now pales in comparison to the 107 million copies that have been sold worldwide in over 70 languages including Greek, Finnish and Vietnamese.

These are just a few of the stats that feature in the infographic created by online cartridge company, Cartridge Save, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the publishing of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

It goes on to detail the most popular words in the Harry Potter series, including:

· “The” is the most popular word.

· “Harry” appears 16612 times, “Ron” 5784 and “Hermione” 4966 times.

· “Dumbledore” is the next most popular character at 2868 mentions.

· The most popular adjectives in Harry Potter include “nasty”, “terrified” and “magical”.

· “Nothing happened” is the most frequently used sentence in Harry Potter followed by “Harry looked around” and “Harry stared”.

The infographic compares Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone alongside other popular bestsellers, including Don Quixote, Fifty Shades of Grey, The Hobbit, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and The Da Vinci Code. A timeline shows the dates each was published and graphs compare their word counts and copies sold.

Copies Sold

· Harry Potter (full series): 504 million (bestselling series)

· Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone: 107 million

· Don Quixote: 500 million (bestselling standalone book)

· Fifty Shades Trilogy: 100 million*

· The Hobbit: 100 million

· The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: 85 million

· The Da Vinci Code: 80 million

*Did you know Amazon UK alone has sold more copies of Fifty Shades of Grey than it has the entire Harry Potter series?

Blockbusters

Finally the infographic explores the further development of the books into films, comparing these to other blockbusters:

· Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 2): $1.34 billion