Bloomsbury released J.K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter book in the United Kingdom.
Bloomsbury published Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone on 26 June 1997. The company was a relatively independent British publisher compared with the large international publishing groups that later handled the series in other territories.
The book’s early success transformed the commercial prospects of both Rowling and Bloomsbury. Bloomsbury continued publishing the British editions of the Harry Potter novels, whose sales and cultural impact made the series one of the defining publishing successes of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Scholastic published the American editions, where the first book was retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. This difference in publisher and title is a frequent source of confusion when international readers compare editions.