The Bookseller.com

6th July 2009

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Harry Potter: first reviews appear

19.07.07

Two US newspapers, including the New York Times, have written reviews of the latest Harry Potter after receiving copies of the embargoed book early. US publisher Scholastic said yesterday that about 1,200 copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, had been shipped early.

Neither newspaper reveals the ending of the book. The Baltimore Sun, which claimed to have received it from a reader who is a relative of a Sun reporter, wrote:"Suffice it to say, though, that once you have consumed the final sentence on the final page crafted by Rowling, the ending seems inevitable. It is a tribute to the author's consummate storytelling skills that once the pieces fall into place, it all seems rather obvious. No other outcome would have been as plausible."

The NYT writes: "Getting to the finish line is not seamless — the last part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in the series, has some lumpy passages of exposition and a couple of clunky detours — but the overall conclusion and its determination of the main characters' story lines possess a convincing inevitability that make some of the prepublication speculation seem curiously blinkered in retrospect."

In a statement Scholastic confirmed that about 1,200 copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows had been erroneously mailed early to readers by the distributor, Levy Home Entertainment, and DeepDiscount.com, a customer of the distributor. Scholastic said it was taking "immediate" legal action, and appealed to anyone who received the book early not to open it.

Both UK publisher Bloomsbury and Scholastic were yesterday engaged in a desperate battle to suppress a number of websites after extracts apparently taken from the book appeared on the internet.

NY Times

US harry potter children's J K Rowling