Harry Potter Facts

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1. J.K. Rowling abandoned another book that she was writing in order to start working on the Harry Potter series.

2. The series wouldn't exist without Alice Newton, the then-8-year-old daughter of the chair at Bloomsbury Publishing, who read the first book before it was picked up for publishing and called it "so much better than anything else".

3. There are only 500 first-edition copies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in existence: around 350 hardback copies, and 150 proof copies.

4. In contrast, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows had the highest initial print run in history, with 12 million copies released at midnight on July 21, 2007.

5. In 2014, a full set of first-edition Harry Potter books sold at auction for £11,250.

6. The Harry Potter series is the biggest-selling book series of all time. As of 2011, it had sold more than 450 million copies.

7. According to Rowling, in the Potter-verse, there are about 3,000 wizards living in Britain.

8. In 2006, Rowling said that "The Mirror of Erised" is her favourite chapter in the first book, and one of her favourites from the entire series.

9. She has since said that her favourite chapter in the series is "The Forest Again" from Deathly Hallows. Both chapters involve Harry interacting with the memory of his parents.

10. The character of Rubeus Hagrid was based on a Hell's Angel who J.K. Rowling met in the West Country. According to Robbie Coltrane, "He was just huge and terrifying. And then he would sit down and talk about his garden and how his petunias had been very bad that year."

11. In Philosopher's Stone, Hagrid says he bought Fluffy from "a Greek chappie" he met in the Leaky Cauldron. Three-headed dogs are prominent in Greek mythology, the most famous being Cerberus, who guards the Underworld.

12. Despite this connection to Greek mythology, in the film version Hagrid says he bought Fluffy from "an Irish fella" instead.

13. In the Harry Potter universe, a gold Galleon is worth around £4.93 ($7.35), a silver Sickle is worth around 29p ($0.46), and a bronze Knut is worth about 1p ($0.02).

14. That means that, in the first book, Harry paid £34.51 – or $51.45 – for his wand at Ollivander's.

15. Since its original publication in 1997, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone has been translated into around 70 different languages, including Latin and Ancient Greek.

16. Non–English-speaking fans became so impatient when waiting for translations that they began translating the books themselves.

17. In 2007, a 16-year-old was arrested in France for publishing a pirated translation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows online.

18. In 2002, an unauthorised fifth book was published in China titled Harry Potter and Bao Zoulong. The title was translated into English as Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-To-Dragon.

19. The book consisted of the text of J.R.R. Tolkein's The Hobbit with names changed to Harry Potter characters. The first line was "Harry doesn't know how long it will take to wash the sticky cream cake off his face."

20. Other unauthorised sequels have included Harry Potter and the Crystal Vase and Harry Potter and the Golden Turtle in China, and the Indian Harry Potter in Calcutta.

21. Even the American versions of the books were translated into American English. "Fringe" became "bangs", "ice lolly" became "ice pop", and "letterbox" became "mail slot".

22. In the French edition, Voldemort's middle name is Elvis. The change was necessary so that his full name – Tom Elvis Jedusor – would become an anagram of "je suis Voldemort".