Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
![]() | It has been suggested that Order of the Phoenix (fictional organisation) be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since August 2024. |
![]() Cover art of the original UK edition | |
Author | J. K. Rowling |
---|---|
Illustrator | Jason Cockcroft (first edition) |
Language | English |
Series | Harry Potter |
Release number | 5th in series |
Genre | Fantasy |
Publisher | Bloomsbury (UK) |
Publication date | 2 April 2003 |
Publication place | United Kingdom |
Pages | 766 (first edition) |
ISBN | 0-7475-5100-6 |
Preceded by | Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire |
Followed by | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince |
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a fantasy novel written by the British author J. K. Rowling. It is the fifth novel in the Harry Potter series. It follows Harry Potter's struggles through his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, including the surreptitious return of the antagonist Lord Voldemort, O.W.L. exams, and an obstructive Ministry of Magic. The novel was published on 2 April 2003 by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom, Scholastic in the United States, and Raincoast in Canada. It sold five million copies in the first 24 hours of publication.[1]
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix won several awards, including the American Library Association Best Book Award for Young Adults in 2003. The book was also made into a 2007 film, and a video game by Electronic Arts.
Plot
[edit]Following Voldemort's resurrection, Harry spends an unusually quiet summer at the Dursleys without much incident. One evening, Dementors attack him and his cousin Dudley, leading Harry to be extracted to Sirius Black's family home in London by the Order of the Phoenix. The home is headquarters for the Order, a shadow organization led by Dumbledore and offering resistance against Death Eaters. Harry learns that the Ministry is suppressing news of Voldemort, and that Order members are actively preventing a secret 'weapon' from falling into his hands.
A senior Ministry employee, Dolores Umbridge, becomes the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts. Her textbook-only curriculum baffles students, who are not learning to defend themselves in face of impending war. Empowered by the Ministry, Umbridge interferes in other classes too, driving students to form a secret group to learn defensive magic themselves. The group is named Dumbledore's Army, and meets regularly inside the Room of Requirement. Harry's crush, Cho Chang, is in the group as well, and kisses Harry under mistletoe following a group meeting.
Harry has a vision about an attack on Arthur Weasley on Ministry premises, which turns out to be true. Fearing Harry can see into Voldemort's mind, Dumbledore sets up Harry to learn Occlumency from Professor Snape to guard against manipulation. Harry visits Hogsmeade with Cho for Valentine's Day, but fails to interact meaningfully with her. Meanwhile, Umbridge learns about the DA from Cho's friend, Marietta. Dumbledore is falsely accused of rallying students to mutiny against the Ministry. He leaves Hogwarts, and Umbridge becomes Headmistress.
During exams, Harry has a vision of Voldemort torturing Sirius over the 'weapon', located inside the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry. Harry and friends reach the Department to save Sirius, but only find shelves containing glass spheres at the location. Harry retrieves one sphere bearing his name, and immediately, they are surrounded by Death Eaters. Lucius Malfoy orders to be given the prophecy, which concerns Voldemort, but Harry refuses. His friends and Harry fight using DA spells, as Order members show up in aid, after being alerted to Harry's absence at Hogwarts by Snape.
In the ensuing struggle, Bellatrix Lestrange kills her cousin Sirius, and the prophecy is accidentally destroyed. Voldemort tries to kill Harry, but he is shielded by Dumbledore. The final moments of their duel are witnessed by Cornelius Fudge and Ministry employees, just before Voldemort flees with Bellatrix. Returning to Hogwarts, Harry mourns Sirius as Dumbledore explains that the prophecy, made years ago by Professor Trelawney, led Voldemort to choose Harry as having 'power to vanquish the Dark Lord'. Harry realises his destiny is to face Voldemort in the end, or die in the attempt. Meanwhile, news about the Ministry incident become public and Fudge is forced to announce Voldemort's return.
Publication and release
[edit]Potter fans waited three years between the releases of the fourth and fifth books.[2][3] Before the release of the fifth book, 200 million copies of the first four books had already been sold and translated into 55 languages in 200 countries.[4] As the series was already a global phenomenon, the book forged new pre-order records, with thousands of people queuing outside book stores on 20 June 2003 to secure copies at midnight.[4] Despite the security, thousands of copies were stolen from an Earlestown, Merseyside warehouse on 15 June 2003.[5]
Critical response
[edit]Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was met with mostly positive reviews and received several awards. The Guardian reported on reviews from several British publications with a rating scale for the novel out of five: Daily Mail gave it a four, The Observer, Evening Standard, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph and The Times gave it a three and Independent on Sunday gave it a two.[6]
In 2004, the book was cited as an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults and as an American Library Association Notable Book.[7][8] It also received the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio 2004 Gold Medal, along with several other awards.[9] Rowling was praised for her imagination by USA Today writer Deirdre Donahue.[10] The New York Times writer John Leonard praised the novel, saying "The Order of the Phoenix starts slow, gathers speed and then skateboards, with somersaults, to its furious conclusion....As Harry gets older, Rowling gets better."[11] However, he also criticised "the one-note Draco Malfoy" and the predictable Lord Voldemort.[11]
Predecessors and sequels
[edit]Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth book in the Harry Potter series.[2] The first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was first published by Bloomsbury in 1997 with an initial print-run of 500 copies in hardback, 300 of which were distributed to libraries. By the end of 1997, the UK edition won a National Book Award and a gold medal in the 9-to-11-year-olds category of the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize.[12][13][14] The second novel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in the UK on 2 July 1998. The third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, was published a year later in the UK on 8 July 1999 and in the US on 8 September 1999.[13][14] The fourth novel, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was published 8 July 2000, simultaneously by Bloomsbury and Scholastic.[15] The fifth novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is the longest book in the series, yet it is the second-shortest film at 2 hours 18 minutes.[16]
After the publishing of Order of the Phoenix, the sixth book of the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was published on 2 April 2005 and sold 9 million copies in the first 24 hours of its worldwide release.[1][17] The seventh and final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published 21 July 2007.[18] The book sold 11 million copies within 24 hours of its release: 2.7 million copies in the UK and 8.3 million in the US.[17]
Adaptations
[edit]Film
[edit]In 2007, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released in a film version directed by David Yates and written by Michael Goldenberg. The film was produced by David Heyman's company, Heyday Films, alongside David Barron. The budget was reportedly between £75 and 100 million (US$150–200 million),[19][20] and it became the unadjusted eleventh-highest-grossing film of all time and a critical and commercial success.[21] The film opened to a worldwide 5-day opening of $333 million, the third best of all time, and grossed $940 million total, second to Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End for the greatest total of 2007.[22][23]
Video games
[edit]A video game adaptation of the book and film versions of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was made for Microsoft Windows, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, PSP, Nintendo DS, Wii, Game Boy Advance, and Mac OS X.[24] It was released on 25 June 2007 in the U.S., 28 June 2007 in Australia, and 29 June 2007 in the UK and Europe for PlayStation 3, PSP, PlayStation 2, Windows, and 3 July 2007 for most other platforms.[25] The games were published by Electronic Arts.[26]
The book is also depicted in the 2011 video game Lego Harry Potter: Years 5–7.
Translations
[edit]The first official foreign translation of the book appeared in Vietnamese on 21 July 2003, when the first of twenty-two instalments was released. The first official European translation appeared in Serbia and Montenegro in Serbian by the official publisher Narodna Knjiga in early September 2003. Other translations appeared later (e.g. in November 2003 in Dutch and German). The English-language version has topped the bestseller list in France, whereas in Germany and the Netherlands, an unofficial distributed translation process was started on the internet.[27]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b "July date for Harry Potter book". BBC News. 21 December 2004. Archived from the original on 29 December 2008. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
- ^ a b Ross, Shmuel; Mark Zurlo (2000–2009). "Harry Potter Timeline: 2000 to the Present". Pearson Education, publishing as Infoplease. Archived from the original on 24 December 2016. Retrieved 11 July 2009.
- ^ "Harry Potter Books". MuggleNet.com. 1999–2009. Archived from the original on 6 June 2009. Retrieved 29 May 2009.
- ^ a b "Potter-mania sweeps bookstores". CNN. 30 June 2003. Archived from the original on 24 July 2008. Retrieved 29 May 2009.
- ^ "Thousands of Potter books stolen". BBC News. 17 June 2003. Archived from the original on 18 August 2009. Retrieved 29 May 2009.
- ^ "Review of reviews". The Guardian. 24 June 2003. p. 24. Retrieved 16 January 2024.
- ^ "Best Books for Young Adults Annotated List 2004". American Library Association. 2004. Archived from the original on 14 April 2009. Retrieved 30 May 2009.
- ^ "2004 Notable Children's Books". American Library Association. 2009. Archived from the original on 5 September 2009. Retrieved 30 May 2009.
- ^ Levine, Arthur (2001–2005). "Awards". Arthur A. Levine Books. Archived from the original on 29 April 2006. Retrieved 30 May 2009.
- ^ Donahue, Deirdre (25 June 2003). "Rich characters, magical prose elevate 'Phoenix'". USA Today. Archived from the original on 1 June 2009. Retrieved 31 May 2009.
- ^ a b Leonard, John (13 July 2003). "Nobody Expects the Inquisition". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 9 June 2009. Retrieved 31 May 2009.
- ^ Knapp, N.F. (2003). "In Defense of Harry Potter: An Apologia" (PDF). School Libraries Worldwide. 9 (1). International Association of School Librarianship: 78–91. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 March 2011. Retrieved 14 May 2009.
- ^ a b "A Potter timeline for muggles". Toronto Star. 14 July 2007. Archived from the original on 20 December 2008. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
- ^ a b "Harry Potter: Meet J.K. Rowling". Scholastic Inc. Archived from the original on 4 June 2007. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
- ^ "Speed-reading after lights out". The Guardian. London. 19 July 2000. Archived from the original on 31 December 2013. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
- ^ Elisco, Lester (2000–2009). "The Phenomenon of Harry Potter". TomFolio.com. Archived from the original on 12 April 2009. Retrieved 22 January 2009.
- ^ a b "Harry Potter finale sales hit 11 m". BBC News. 23 July 2007. Archived from the original on 25 December 2008. Retrieved 21 August 2008.
- ^ "Rowling unveils last Potter date". BBC News. 1 February 2007. Archived from the original on 28 December 2008. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
- ^ Cornwell, Tim (24 January 2007). "Oscars signal boom (except for Scots)". The Scotsman. UK. Archived from the original on 9 January 2009. Retrieved 24 January 2007.
- ^ Haun, Harry (20 June 2007). "Harry the Fifth". Film Journal International. Archived from the original on 4 August 2008. Retrieved 26 June 2007.
- ^ "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on 1 February 2009. Retrieved 5 February 2009.
- ^ "Worldwide Openings". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on 23 June 2011. Retrieved 6 March 2008.
- ^ "2007 Worldwide Grosses". Box Office Mojo. 6 March 2008. Archived from the original on 8 May 2013.
- ^ "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: The Videogame". Electronic Arts Inc. 2007. Archived from the original on 19 January 2012. Retrieved 11 July 2009.
- ^ "Harry Potter: Phoenix". CBS Interactive Inc. 2009. Archived from the original on 11 June 2009. Retrieved 10 June 2009.
- ^ "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: The Video Game". Electronic Arts Inc. 2009. Archived from the original on 18 May 2009. Retrieved 30 May 2009.
- ^ "Harry auf Deutsch: Projekt-Übersicht der Harry Potter Übersetzung (en)". Archived from the original on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 10 July 2011.
External links
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