What is the title of the first Harry Potter book?
The Harry Potter franchise has been going strong for almost 25 years now, despite a multitude of controversies. Some of those issues arose when adapting the books into movies — many fans still finding fault with some of the things that directors and screenwriters chose to change and remove — and others came from fan demands for better representation and issues with both the stories and their author’s viewpoints. But, as fans know, even adapting the books for publication for an American audience came with a small conflict.
In Britain, and the majority of the world, the book detailing Harry’s entry into the Wizarding World and his first year at Hogwarts is called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, but Scholastic publishing head Arthur A. Levine was concerned that American readers wouldn’t be drawn to that title. Philip W. Errington explained in his biography of series author J.K. Rowling that the publisher wanted “a title that said ‘magic’ more overtly to American readers.” Levine suggested titles like Harry Potter and the School of Magic, but Rowling refused them. The issue proved to be with the word “philosopher,” which isn’t inherently mystical. Rowling eventually suggested changing the title to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and that’s what Scholastic went with.