Harry Potter has been around forever, right? You can’t have a conversation with people of a certain age without being at least prepared for a reference from Harry Potter to pop up. The Harry Potter films — and there have been eight of them — have grossed nearly $8 billion. JK Rowling, the author whose own story has also been turned into legend (she pursued her writing while poor in cafes with her newborn beside her), is now a billionaire. The Harry Potter books have been translated into 73 languages, with the last one selling 11 million copies in 24 hours in the US alone.
[J. K. Rowling Tries Not Being Famous]
But with the announcement that the Harry Potter journey will continue now on the stage — with the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child — it’s also striking to consider that all of this has happened in a mere 18 years. Harry, who it seems has always been in the world, is only just approaching his 18th year of existence. The first Harry Potter book — Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone — was published June 30, 1997. (The book was titled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
