“Is Little Nell alive?!”
“Does Harry die?”
Only once before in the history of publishing has there been a story that brought readers as close as the Harry Potter series has.
Readers in England and North America in 1840 followed The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens with as much fervor as today’s Harry Potter fans. Dickens serialized his work using monthly magazines, just as J. K. Rowling carefully released hers every year or so, and readers from all backgrounds followed his story just as they do hers. One 19th Century writer said that readers of Dickens included “judges on the bench and boys in the street.â€? Even illiterate fans pooled their money to buy a copy of each installment–then paid someone to read it aloud to them!
When the magazines containing the final episode of The Old Curiosity Shop were scheduled to arrive in New York on a ship, crowds thronged the pier and shouted to the passengers asking whether Little Nell was still alive.
Indeed, poor Nell died, and readers were devastated and angry at the author. Literary historians look back on The Old Curiosity Shop phenomenon and speculate on what caused hundreds of thousands of people to care so much about a story that wasn’t even true. Scholars in the future will undoubtedly do the same thing for J. K. Rowling and Harry Potter.
But we have the privilege of living through this time—and it’s in our field: books. Just think about it—millions of readers are waiting excitedly together to learn how it all turns out. Readers. Not television viewers, but readers! There will most likely never be another week like this in any of our careers.
Does Harry die? Do they live happily ever after?
Next week we’ll know.
Next week we may be sad or angry.
But this week we’re all waiting and asking the question together: “And then what happened?�
Will Rowling pull a Dickens? Will she kill Harry?
It doesn’t really matter. Let’s just step back and savor this unbelievably wonderful moment.
I am really hoping Harry lives; I believe in happily ever after; and so does most everbody’s children and grandchildren.
Neat article, I had no idea that a Dickens story created the kind of hysteria on par with Mr. Potter.
Correct, Cindy. It doesn’t really matter whether Harry dies. What really matters is whether Snape dies. I’m going stark raving mad worrying about him. I’m so scared she’ll kill him off. He’ll die nobly, sacrificing himself to save Harry, or something atrocious like that.