ABSTRACT
Muggle mania swept the country yesterday as Harry Potter fans queued for hours in atrocious weather conditions outside bookstores before the release of the series’ seventh and final book
(Irish Independent, July 21, 2007)
This last summer, while away on vacation and collecting my thoughts in order to write an updated version of my original book chapter for the second edition of Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter, I awoke at my bed and breakfast outside of Dublin, Ireland to the above newspaper headline (Riegel and McDonagh, 2007) and was instantly reminded of why the work in this new collection would be so important. I knew that the seventh Harry Potter book was due to arrive on bookstore shelves, but as an American, had not anticipated being faced so squarely with the frenzy overseas. It began with the newspaper over tea in the common area of the inn but as I ventured into Dublin, I was soon aware that the day was going to be indelibly marked by Pottermania. The bookstores of Dublin overflowed into the streets, spilling out the hundreds of humans, many of them costumed, awaiting their copy of the “last book” and the various figurines and related merchandise available for point-of-purchase sale. The traffic patterns of Dublin, which I had already become accustomed to in just a few days’ time, were significantly compromised and the city had the air of a party taking place. The mania continued throughout the day and followed me into the train station as I prepared to depart on a journey to the city of Cork. The train station at Dublin had a small bookstore and it too was bustling with people vying to buy their copies of the book, several of whom I am quite sure gave up their places on the scheduled trains to stay in line! Upon my arrival in Cork, I was greeted by a
handful of enterprising people who had bought several dozen copies of the book early in the morning, stacked them high in cardboard boxes, and were selling them to eager tourists from all over the world at prices far greater than the original cover price of the books. The evening’s news back in Dublin was full of stories about the day’s Pottermania and news coverage continued through the next week.
