One of the absolute best things about Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (or Philosopher’s Stonedepending on where you live) is the iconic first line. Mr. and Mrs. Dursely of 4, Privet Drive could proudly say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. Put simply, it’s a setting marker so readers know where the action will take place, but it’s actually so much more than that. It adds personality to the book and gives you an immediate idea of what kind of people the Durselys must be.
It is no wonder that this sentence has been highlighted over the years and even recently made it into the top five in a list of the best opening sentences in literary history, right next to works such as Nineteen hundred and eighty-four, Peter Pan And A tale of two citiesBut apparently this now iconic opening was not the first line that Rowling wrote for The Philosopher’s StoneThe author recently gave an interview to the Sunday Times to promote her latest book The running graveand during the conversation she was asked about the first line she ever wrote for Harry Potter. Here’s what she said…
The first line I wrote about it didn’t end up in the book. It was, “The Potter family lived in Darke’s Hollow,” which was the original name of Godric’s Hollow.
Well, this is actually very interesting for two different reasons. Let’s start with the most obvious one, which is, with all due respect to this line, it’s a significant downgrade from the opener we ended up getting. Like the iconic “Thank you very much” line, it gives the reader a place to take them into the world, but it has no personality and gives you no sense of the characters you’re about to meet. It’s perfectly fine, but also boring and wouldn’t belong anywhere near a best of all time list. So I think we can all agree that revising it was a good decision.
Secondly, it is also very interesting because of the location. Godric’s Hollow, or Darke’s Hollow as it was called back then, was the site of Voldemort’s attack on Harry Potter. It is where Harry’s parents die and it is the catalyst for the wizarding world to be turned completely upside down, but in the finished novels and the Harry Potter films, this is all presented as a tragic backstory that our hero and the readers find out later.
The fact that it is the first thing Rowling wrote seems to indicate (unless she wrote her first novel in the wrong order, which seems unlikely) that she originally intended The Philosopher’s Stone in a very different place, by focusing chronologically on the first major plot point, presumably introducing us to Harry and his parents before we meet the Dursleys. There’s nothing wrong with that, but by not revealing these details until later, when we see them in the final version, it really helps the reader empathize with Harry, as he’s out of place and initially lacking the important context of his backstory.
In my opinion, Rowling improves as an author over the course of the seven Harry Potter novels, the first of which did not raise too high expectations when it was first published. Her narrative style is consistently grand and richly complicated, but in the later books she gains confidence and relies on more linguistic flourishes. Even in The Philosopher’s Stonehowever, there are moments where her natural talent really shines through. The first line is perhaps the best and most obvious moment of it, and I’m so glad she revised to get there.
