What was J.K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter book called in Britain?

J.K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in Britain.

Bloomsbury published the novel in the United Kingdom on 26 June 1997. It introduces Harry Potter, an orphan who discovers on his eleventh birthday that he is a wizard. He then attends Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, meets Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, and learns about the threat posed by Lord Voldemort.

When Scholastic published the American edition in 1998, it changed the title to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. The change was made because the publisher believed that the word “sorcerer” would be more appealing or understandable to American readers. The story itself remained substantially the same, but the different title is a frequent source of confusion in international trivia.

The book won major awards and became a global bestseller. It established the central characters, the rules of the wizarding world, and the conflict that continued through six subsequent novels. The film adaptation, released in 2001, used the American title in the United States.