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harry potter - Why was the "...philosophers stone" retitled to "... the sorcerer's stone" for the US Market?


I can only assume that it's executive meddling, but has there ever been a reason stated for the re-titling of the first harry potter book for US Markets?



Answer




Q: What kind of manuscript changes had to be made to make the U.S. version more understandable to American readers? Specific things, like the title change of the first Harry Potter book? (The original British title is Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.)



A: Very few changes have been made in the manuscript. Arthur Levine, my American editor, and I decided that words should be altered only where we felt they would be incomprehensible, even in context, to an American reader. I have had some criticism from other British writers about allowing any changes at all, but I feel the natural extension of that argument is to go and tell French and Danish children that we will not be translating Harry Potter, so they'd better go and learn English. The title change was Arthur's idea initially, because he felt that the British title gave a misleading idea of the subject matter. In England, we discussed several alternative titles and "Sorcerer's Stone" was my idea.


(src: JKR eToys interview, etoys.com, Fall 2000)



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