JK Rowling Confirms Work on Harry Potter Encyclopedia

 

Remember encyclopedias? They were giant books - or a series of books - that magically held the answers to nearly every question you could ask. There were descriptions, pictures, maps and references if you wanted to learn more. They seem to be going away now that we have the Internet, but our need for them is not gone, at least not in all cases: enter the avid Harry Potter fan.

Who is this "avid Harry Potter fan"? This is the person - age, race, gender, and ethnicity is of no consequence - who devoured the seven books written about Harry and his magical world by JK Rowling. This person saw every Harry Potter film, possibly even at its midnight release. This fan either already has or is in the process of obtaining their Pottermore username as you are reading these very words. This dedicated soul, who closed the pages of Rowling's books, but never really ever let their imagination wander too far from Platform 9 3/4, may even write some Harry Potter fan fiction pieces of their own. In short, the "avid Harry Potter fan" is that person who has an insatiable appetite for all that JKR brought to life in her more than 1 million words about Harry.

And "insatiable" means only one thing... they need more.

For a long time JK Rowling has been hounded by questions about developing an exhaustive encyclopedia containing references to magical creatures, lands, laws, people... well, all of the stuff you would see in a regular encyclopedia, only this one referencing nothing but the magical world in the Harry Potter series. In her Pottercast interview in December 2007, she had this to say:

"Yeah. Would it be okay if that's ten years? [No one laughed.] No, listen, I absolutely intend to do it, but I can't pretend that I'm in a hurry right now. It's gonna be a hell of a lot of work. But I have - I've kept everything and I know where things are and yeah, at some point I will get myself together and do it."

I'm not sure if that's the moment she realized how desperately her fans wanted this work, but when she said she planned to do it, she wasn't kidding. Along with a myriad of other fantastic announcements this Spring coming from the Rowling camp like eBook and digital audio versions of the Harry Potter series, the release date of her new adult novel The Casual Vacancy, and the opening of Pottermore to the general public, we have official encyclopedia news!
Tucked away in the "FAQs & Rumours" section of www.jkrowling.com, Rowling addresses the simply stated question "What about the Harry Potter Encyclopaedia?" here is her answer:

For a long time I have been promising an encyclopaedia of Harry’s world, and I have started work on this now – some of it forms the new content in Pottermore. It is likely to be a time-consuming job, but when finished I shall donate all royalties to charity.

It's not done. There is no date for release. However, what we have here is confirmation, from JK Rowling, herself, that the book is in motion. In the meantime, my fellow Potterheads, take to the Internet, grab your Harry Potter books and meet me in Pottermore! I'm PumpkinElm207 and I'm not saying that I'm an avid Harry Potter fan or anything, but I am happy to say that I'm not just a muggle anymore.

Have you been anxiously awaiting this work from JKR?

Are you more excited about this book, or JKR's "The Casual Vacancy"?

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