why did they change harry potter and the philosopher's stone to sorcerer's stone
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Scholastic Corporation bought the U.S. rights at the Bologna Book Fair in April 1997 for US$105,000, an unusually high sum for a children's book.[15] They thought that a child would not want to read a book with the word "philosopher" in the title and,[32][not in citation given] after some discussion, the American edition was published in September 1998[33] under the title Rowling suggested, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.[15] Rowling claimed that she regretted this change and would have fought it if she had been in a stronger position at the time.[11] Philip Nel has pointed out that the change lost the connection with alchemy, and the meaning of some other terms changed in translation, for example from "crumpet" to "muffin". While Rowling accepted the change from both the British English "mum" and Seamus Finnigan's Irish variant "mam" to "mom" in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, she vetoed this change in the later books, which was then reversed in later editions of Philosopher's Stone. However, Nel considered that Scholastic's translations were considerably more sensitive than most of those imposed on British English books of the time, and that some other changes could be regarded as useful copyedits.[30] Since the British editions of early titles in the series were published months prior to the American versions, some American readers became familiar with the British English versions due to buying them from online retailers.[34]
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone The book was first published in the United Kingdom in 1997 by Bloomsbury. In 1998, it was published in the United States 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. The book reached the top of the New York Times list of best-selling fiction in August 1999 and stayed near the top of that list for much of 1999 and 2000. It has been translated into at least seventy three other languages, and has been made into a feature-length film of the same name, as have all six of its sequels.