what is the very first harry potter book?
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
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 The book was published in the United Kingdom on 2 July 1998 by Bloomsbury and in the United States on 2 June 1999 by Scholastic Inc . Although Rowling found it difficult to finish the book , it won high praise and awards from critics , young readers and the book industry , although some critics thought the story was perhaps too frightening for younger children . Much like with other novels in the series , Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets triggered religious debates ; some religious authorities have condemned its use of magical themes , while others have praised its emphasis on self @-@ sacrifice and on the way in which a person 's character is the result of the person 's choices . 

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 Around 2001 , Clarke " had begun to despair " , and started looking for someone to help her finish and sell the book . Giles Gordon became her first literary agent and sold the unfinished manuscript to Bloomsbury in early 2003 , after two publishers rejected it as unmarketable . Bloomsbury were so sure the novel would be a success that they offered Clarke a £ 1 million advance . They printed 250 @,@ 000 hardcover copies simultaneously in the United States , Britain , and Germany . Seventeen translations were begun before the first English publication was released on 8 September 2004 in the United States and on 30 September in the United Kingdom . 

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 Harry Potter is a series of fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling . The novels chronicle the life of a young wizard , Harry Potter , and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley , all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry . The main story arc concerns Harry 's struggle against Lord Voldemort , the Dark wizard who intends to become immortal , overthrow the Ministry of Magic , subjugate non @-@ magic people ( Muggles ) and destroy anyone who stands in his way . 

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 Of the first three books in the series , Prisoner of Azkaban took the shortest amount of time to write – Philosopher 's Stone took five years to complete and Chamber of Secrets required two years , while Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was written in one year . Rowling 's favourite aspect of this book was introducing the character Remus Lupin , Rowling additionally said that Prisoner of Azkaban was " the best writing experience I ever had ... I was in a very comfortable place writing ( number ) three . Immediate financial worries were over , and press attention wasn 't yet by any means excessive " . 

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 Born in Yate , Gloucestershire , England , Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series while on a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990 . The seven @-@ year period that followed saw the death of her mother , birth of her first child , divorce from her first husband and relative poverty until she finished the first novel in the series , Harry Potter and the Philosopher 's Stone , in 1997 . There were six sequels , the last , Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , in 2007 . Since then , Rowling has written four books for adult readers , The Casual Vacancy ( 2012 ) and — under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith — the crime fiction novels The Cuckoo 's Calling ( 2013 ) , The Silkworm ( 2014 ) and Career of Evil ( 2015 ) . 
