the harry potter series by j.k. rowling are among the most popular book series of all time among people of all ages. Millions of copies have been sold in various countries and the books have been translated into many different languages. they have been adapted into eight feature films, each of which has grossed millions of dollars at the box office.
In this article, we are going to see how many words there are in the Harry Potter series. We’ll also see how Harry Potter compares to other young adult novels when it comes to word count.
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comparison of each book in the series
First, we’ll look at the word count for each book in the series. The first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, has 76,944 words. it has fewer words than the other six books, making it the shortest book in the series. Since this was the first book, Rowling had more time to edit the book and make the writing more concise. besides, he probably didn’t want the first book to be too long, or the publisher might not have accepted it. she was a new author at the time. Publishers generally don’t accept long novels from first-time authors.
By comparison, each of the other six books is longer, probably due to the initial success of Philosopher’s Stone, which in its first two years sold over 300,000 copies in the UK. only. According to Wikipedia, the US version, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” remained on the New York Times bestseller list for “79 consecutive weeks.”
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Because of the sales of the first book, the publishers (Bloomsbury for the UK version and Scholastic for the US version) wanted more books about Rowling’s world of Harry Potter. they were willing to accept longer books because they knew later books would sell well. the word count figures for the other six books, in order:
As you can see, books two through five get progressively longer. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the longest book in the series. why? jk rowling did an interview with the harry potter fan site the leay potter and mugglenet in july 2005. one of the things he talked about was how he feels the fifth book is too long, but he challenges “anyone to find the obvious place to cut. /p>
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He goes on to state that in the fifth book, “he had to move harry a lot, physically. there were places he had to go that he had never been before, and it took time to get him there, to get him away.” New elements in the fifth book that hadn’t been in the previous four books. Overall, Rowling couldn’t determine what subplots could be left out to shorten the Order of the Phoenix. She felt that what was there was necessary.
The last two books are a bit shorter but still longer than the first books in the series. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is 119.54% longer than the first book. The last book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is 157.63% longer than the first book. In total, the seven Harry Potter books contain 1,084,170 words. those 1,084,170 words occupy 6,095 pages.
comparison with other young adult books
If you’ve read our related article on how many words are in a novel, you’ll remember that the typical word count for a novel is 80,000 to 109,000 words. for novels specifically in the young adult genre, the typical range is between 55,000 and 79,999 words. only the first book in the harry potter series falls within that range.
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however, when you consider that the harry potter series belongs to the fantasy genre, it makes sense that the books would be longer than other young adult novels. There is a lot of world building in Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling had to come up with backgrounds for each significant character. Typically, young adult fantasy novels can be 80,000 words or more.
what is the difference in word count between the harry potter series and the hunger games trilogy? well, the total word count of the three books in the hunger games trilogy is 301,583 words. here’s that number broken down by book:
of course the whole harry potter series has more words because it has four more books. But let’s compare the first three books in the Harry Potter series to the Hunger Games trilogy. The total of the first three Harry Potter books is 269,338 words. that’s 11% less than the hunger games trilogy.
Overall, the Harry Potter series is over a million words long. that’s more words than most other young adult book series. even the individual books in the series have more words than average. Furthermore, millions of people, both young and old, who have read these books have read more than a million words. and that’s a great thing.
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