Harry Potter and the Book as Artifact I

This is part II in a series, read part I here.

The book as artifact

Book history reminds us that books are a lot more than just stories on a page or device. When considering the book as artifact, we’re thinking about all the physical things that make up that story: the book covers, the dust jackets, the paper it was printed on, the illustrations, the typography; all those components that we see and feel through the act of reading.

The Harry Potter series is about a boy wizard growing up in a magical school while learning the world isn’t all rainbows and sunshine. The books that contain those stories are seven robust volumes {numbers 4 through 7 could easily be considered tomes} clocking in at 3,341 pages {story only} and weighing 16 pounds {US hardcover weight}. I personally own the first US hardcover and paperback editions and Scholastic {Rowling’s US publisher} has four print editions currently for sale on their website. Bloomsbury, the books’ UK publisher, has what appears to be ten different editions in English alone on their website as well as editions in Latin, Ancient Greek, Welsh, and Irish. There’s clearly a lot to talk about, let’s dive in.

Two stacks of Harry Potter books side-by-side. The left stack is the first US paperback copies; the right stack is the first US hardcover copies.

In my 10.27.21 post I studied the difference between the hardcover and paperback editions of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. In that post I discussed the similarities and differences in hardcover and paperback, to sum it up:

• both versions have the same number of pages meaning that the typographic layout is the same despite the paper being smaller;

• the illustrations are the same within the book and on the covers; the hardcover illustrations are on the dust jacket while the paperback’s are on the cover stock itself;

• The paper used for the paperback is cheaper, thinner, and more acidic than the hardcover leading to yellowing at the edges and browning in the interior.

Before moving on from the first book in the series, it’s also important to note a major difference between the American and British versions: the British version, and still is, released with the title Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. While they are essentially the same thing, the US version received a title change because the Arthur Levine, the editor, thought “sorcerer’s stone” sounded more magical (Biedenharn, 2015).

OK, let’s look at some other physical aspects of these delightful novels…

All 7 US hardcover editions of Harry Potter without their dust jackets

A rainbow of color and a hint of texture

The first US hardcover editions of Harry Potter are not just catchy because of their wonderfully illustrated dust jackets. I’m a big fan of reading books without the dust jackets. Publishers tend to put most of their design efforts into the dust jacket and I don’t want to ruin all that work. Also, if my tea spills on the cover or my cat cleans her paw on it, the dust jacket will cover up any mess. My dust jacket etiquette is supported in the literature. Dust jackets were first used by the British to “protect books from the human enemy” {apparently there weren’t that many cats back then} (Massey, 2005). Massey also studied the, let’s say ‘attractiveness’ of dust jackets when their library streamlined their cataloging processes and began leaving dust jackets on circulating books instead of removing them. Massey (2005) reports a 54% increase in check-out rates of books with their dust jackets left on. So why are dust jackets so dang good looking? Why, it’s advertising, of course! In the 1980s there was a shift in how books were sold, especially children’s and young adult books. Independent book sellers were on the decline but buying books at larger corporate bookstores or other retail stores was on the rise. If no one was personally recommending a book to someone, then the books needed to sell themselves. Introducing: the rise of graphics on dust jackets (Massey, 2005; Stevenson, 1997). For a study conducted in 1997 for Publisher’s Weekly, Nanette Stevenson says that the dust jacket is answering two important questions “What is this book about?” and “Who is the reader?” (Stevenson, 1997, p. 139). These questions are easily answered by the Harry Potter dust jackets. While the Sorcerer’s Stone dust jacket doesn’t show Harry with the telltale wand, he is riding a broom with a castle in the background; so the uninitiated reader can guess the book is about a boy witch {riding a broom is awfully witch-ish} at a castle. That’s not exactly everything but close enough that you’d probably pick up the book the find out more. Assuming that after readers are going through the books in order, each subsequent dust jacket hints at what’s inside: Chamber of Secrets features the sword of Gryffindor and a phoenix, Prisoner of Azkaban has a hippogriff, and The Deathly Hallows has a structure in the background reminiscent of an old gladiator coliseum- may the best survive and the loser die…

Dust jackets are likely to be damaged or removed and, as a bookbinder, I’m always curious about what’s underneath. Since a book is likely to eventually be parted from its dust jacket, a well-loved book will end up on display naked. I haven’t yet stumbled upon research supporting my theory but when a book is well designed under the jacket, I take it as a sign of care by the publisher; this is a book that they think will sell well and that people will keep around long after the fancy design tears and bends.

While much more plain, without their dust jackets the Harry Potter series is still exciting. Each hardcover is a different color and the spine cloth on each volume is a color that contrasts the cover color {see photo above}. Looking closely, each cover is also blind debossed with a diaper pattern {diamond pattern}. This pattern mimics what is seen on the half title and title page when you open the books {see below}. It’s a clever little tactile treat for the fingertips that ties to the visual delight just inside.

Cover debossing beneath the dust jacket on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Half title page from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Title page from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Before we go any further into the book, we have one more thing to look at, the end sheets! The bright, solid colors don’t stop at the covers. Each book in the series begins and ends with a bright end sheet that contrasts the colors on both the dust jacket and cover underneath. While the books are printed in black and white, the pop of end sheet color hints at excitement to come.

Front end sheets from all seven books in the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling {please pardon my air filter, it’s the end of wildfire season in California}.

Between the covers

“The page is the atom of the book, its most basic building block…For almost two millennia the page has been the primary way that we have accessed reading. The page is where words assume order, and it is that order that has helped shape the meaning of words for us” (Piper, 2012, p.512).

The quote above is from an academic article that is actually considering the evolution of books and the page format in the digital era. While considering this future it brings up the fundamental importance of the printed page which, like the atom comparison above also “consists of smaller elements” (Piper, 2012, p. 512). Next we’ll look at two elements clearly visible in the pages of Harry Potter.

Typography

Typography looks at the style of letters chosen for the text of a book. Commonly {and mistakenly} called fonts on digital interfaces, some well-know typefaces include Arial, Times New Roman, Gill Sans, and Cambria. I learned in college that serifed typefaces, the ones with feet or strokes at the end of the strokes making up the letters, are easier to read in print while sans serifed font {without or ‘sans’ feet} are easier for digital reading (Coles, 2012). True to this statement, the Harry Potter books are printed in serifed type. According to the colophon, the main text of the books is 11.5 point Adobe Garamond, “a typeface based on the sixteenth-century type designs of Claude Garamond, redrawn by Robert Slimback in 1989” (Rowling, 1998-2007, colophon). The chapter headings are in another serifed typeface but this one looks a little haphazard. The letters are asymmetric and play around with the baseline; not every letter sits straight on the same line {checkout the Rs and H in the title pages above}. The typeface also plays with the line weight, some strokes are thin and some are thick, but inconsistently so (Coles, 2012). This lends a sense of movement and energy to the letters. According to the Harry Potter Fanzone, this typeface, called Lumos {a spell to cast when you need light}, is based on Quidditch and the broomsticks and golden snitches that are part of the game. Now, the signature Harry Potter typeface is the one used for the covers. There are still serifs but they’ve become more curved and organic and, famously, the P in Potter is a lightening bolt, just like the scar left on Harry Potter’s head when Lord Voldemort tried to kill him. Apparently this typeface was based on the one in Mary GrandPré’s original illustrations for the book covers (Harry Potter Fanzone). The typefaces tie cleverly tie together the physical object that is the books in this series. Even before opening the first book, the title with the lightening bolt is telling readers something about the main character. The Lumos typeface is remind readers that there is action in every chapter and the Adobe-Garamond of the main text is making the book legible.

Chapter heading from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Illustrations

Illustrations have had an interesting history in books. For a long time, due to limitations in printing technology, they were black and white woodcuts (Houston, 2016). They didn’t always relate directly to the content in a book and the same images would be used again and again for a variety of books to break up the text (Lamb, 2021). Print technology drastically improved in the Victorian era allowing for better illustration reproduction and the content in images at this time is more directly related to the story (Houston, 2016). A great example of this shift is Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures Underground, illustration by Sir John Tenniel. Each of the original four editions included illustrations (Lastoria, 2019) as did Carroll’s original manuscripts, now in the collection at the British Library. Illustrating young adult chapter books is a trend that continues today, with evidence easily spotted in the US Harry Potter editions.

The illustrations in the US editions of the Harry Potter series are another are another magical element fans are attached to. Mary GrandPré is the illustrator for the US versions of the first editions, brought on by Warner Bros. in 1998 (Rowling, 1998-2007). GrandPré’s artwork appears on the covers and at the start of each chapter inside the book. Her drawings work in both the black & white interior and the exterior covers of the book. Each illustration gives a glimpse of what’s inside, whether it’s the entire book or the more granular chapter. While a new reader could guess from the drawings what might happen in the book or the chapter, the uniqueness of GrandPré’s is that they seem to be intended for the second, third, or 100th reading. Each hidden element won’t be fully understood until you’ve finished reading and return again.

Piper (2012) described pages as frames that “not only allow us to look through, but also at, to see something that has been distilled” (p. 515). This is exactly what is happening with the combination of typefaces and illustration on and about the US Harry Potter series: they are giving us a window into what’s within, inviting us to take action and read the story. I have a British edition of the paperback for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I was eager to spot difference between the texts back when I was studying Shakespeare and art history in London but looking at it in comparison with the US version, it’s definitely lacking. There are no page illustrations, only the Hogwarts logo on the title page and a larger serifed typeface in italic for the chapter headings. While the title is the same, it seems to be lacking the dynamism of the US versions without the embellishments. The Harry Potter tales get darker and more adult-like after the ending of the fourth book. The lack of fun graphics in the UK version of the fifth book seems emblematic of that.

Chapter heading from the UK paperback Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Chapter heading from the US version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Citations

Biedenharn, I. (2015). Unlocking the Secrets of Harry Potter. Entertainment Weekly, 1357, 31–33.

Coles, S. (2012). The anatomy of type: A graphic guide to 100 typefaces. Quid Publishing.

Houston, K. (2016). The book: A cover-to-cover exploration of the most powerful object of our time. W. W. Norton & Company.

Lamb, A. (2021). Course reader for The Book as Artifact from History of the Book 1450+ at IUPUI.

Lastoria, A. (2019). Lewis Carroll, art director: Recovering the design and production rationales for Victorian editions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Book History, 22. pages 196-222.

Massey, T. (2005). Attracting New Customers. Library Mosaics, 16(4), 17.

Piper, A. (2012). Book was there: Reading in electronic times. Chicago University Press.

Stevenson, N. (1997). Hipper, brighter and bolder. (Cover story). Publishers Weekly, 244(7), 139.

Rowling, J.K. (2004). Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Rowling, J.K. (2003). Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix. Arthur A. Levine Books An Imprint of Scholastic.

Rowling, J.K. (1999). Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets. Arthur A. Levine Books An Imprint of Scholastic Press.

*Some citations for web resources are linked directly in the post (in blue).