Blog – Posted on Tuesday, May 28

Of all the zeitgeist-defining fiction to come out of the past twenty years, perhaps none has been more universally beloved than the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. An incredibly imagined fantasy bildungsroman, it follows the eponymous boy wizard as he attends the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and contends with his destiny to fight the Dark Lord, Voldemort. Fortunately, he always has clever, loyal friends Ron and Hermione by his side — plus the invaluable mentorship of eccentric but wise Hogwarts headmaster, Dumbledore.

As fellow Potterheads will know, it’s virtually impossible to rank these books from best to worst, since each one is brilliant in its own way. That’s why we’ve decided to simply present all the Harry Potter books in order of chronology/publication, hitting the highlights for longtime fans to happily reminisce… and to help budding fans get a taste of the series’ genuine magic.

Here’s a quick catalog of the series, so that you know what you’re in for:

HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE 6 As he pulled into the driveway of number four, the ﬁ rst thing he saw – and it didn’t improve his mood – was the tabby cat he’d spotted that morning. It was now sitting on his garden wall. He was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes. ‘Shoo!’ said Mr Dursley. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Secondhandharrypotterbooks 3/15 Second Hand Harry Potter Books volumes. Intricately designed and packed with gorgeous concept art and unit photography from the Warner Bros. Archive, each volume in the series gives fans striking insights about bringing the Wizarding World to the big screen. Included in each book is a collectible art print.

1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (1997)

2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998)

3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999)

4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000)

5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003)

6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005)

7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007)

8. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2016)

And then the accompanying “Hogwarts library” texts:

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)
Quidditch Through the Ages (2016)
The Tales of Beedle the Bard (2016)

As well as Rowling's 'Pottermore Presents' series and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them screenplays:

Hogwarts: An Incomplete and Unreliable Guide (2016)
Short Stories from Hogwarts of Power, Politics and Pesky Poltergeists (2016)
Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroisim, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies (2016)
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: the Original Screenplay (2016)
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald — The Original Screenplay (2018)

Without further ado, let's dive in!

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The main Harry Potter books in order

1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the book that started it all (understatement of the century), Harry Potter discovers his true identity in the wee hours of his eleventh birthday: he is a wizard, famous in the magical world for having vanquished the evil Lord Voldemort when he was only a baby. This revelation, delivered by a gruff, hairy giant named Hagrid, sets Harry on a fantastical (if also often frightening) journey of a lifetime.

He meets bosom buddies Ron and Hermione aboard the Hogwarts Express, and is soon sorted with them into Gryffindor: the house of the intrepid and brave. However, Harry also makes plenty of enemies at Hogwarts, most notably the arrogant Draco Malfoy and the nasty potions master, Snape (both affiliated with Slytherin house). And from battling a troll on Halloween to his first exhilarating Quidditch match — not to mention the novel’s climax, in which Harry goes up against Voldemort for the second time in his young life — there’s never a dull moment in the first year of his new adventure.

Sorcerer’s Stone (or Philosopher’s Stone, as it’s titled outside of the US) also perfectly balances exciting action with touching emotion, as Harry finds a true family in Ron and Hermione after years of misery with the Dursleys. Indeed, the book’s small, moving moments — such as Harry being floored by a gift from Ron’s mother, or Hermione’s tearful declaration at the end about “books and cleverness” — are just as magical as the spells themselves.

2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry and friends return to Hogwarts with a bang — the bang of a flying Ford Anglia as it crashes into the Whomping Willow, that is. After being spotted by Muggles and narrowly avoiding expulsion, you’d think that the rest of Harry’s second year would be smooth sailing in comparison… right?

Wrong. When the school caretaker’s cat is found petrified (essentially paralyzed and comatose, but technically still alive) along with a bone-chilling message that “the Chamber of Secrets has been opened,” fear and suspicions start to arise — and of course, only worsen when students start getting petrified too. Nobody can figure out who the culprit is, only that he refers to himself as “the Heir” and seems to be on the warpath.

But as our young heroes know well by now, if you want a mystery solved right, you have to do it yourself. Which they do — through a combination of Polyjuice potion brewing, mysterious flashbacks provided by a sentient journal, and a truly horrific excursion to see a giant spider called Aragog. The book culminates in a visit to the titular chamber, which lies underneath Hogwarts and contains yet another deadly threat that Harry must face.

But of course, this being an early Potter book, it’s not all din and danger. Comic relief comes in the form of moronic, egocentric professor Gilderoy Lockhart, and toilet ghost Moaning Myrtle — who, in true Rowling fashion, ends up being key to the central plot twist of the story.

3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

The third book in the series introduces Sirius Black, a deranged mass murderer who’s just escaped from the wizard prison of Azkaban. As a result, swarms of Dementors — dark, faceless beings that “suck the soul” out of their victims and serve as the guards of Azkaban — infiltrate Hogwarts to patrol for Black, who’s supposedly after Harry next. To make matters worse, our normally steadfast hero has a bad reaction to the Dementors, which cause him to faint on a train and even lose a critical Quidditch match.

Again, though, it’s not all doom and gloom. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban also features Professor Remus Lupin, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and a school friend of Harry’s late father. Lupin and Harry quickly forge a father-son-like relationship themselves, and Lupin teaches Harry the Patronus Charm (powered by one’s happiest memories) to protect himself from Dementors.

Meanwhile, Ron and Hermione are squabbling even more than usual over their respective pets, Crookshanks the cat and Scabbers the rat. But what seems like a lighthearted subplot turns out to be a major factor in one of the biggest twists of the series, revealed in the last few chapters… and which naturally involves Black and Lupin as well. Oh, and hippogriffs and time traveling, in case that wasn’t enough to sell you on it.

Besides the sheer brilliance of plotting in this book, Rowling also presents some interesting commentary with the Dementors, which symbolize depression and force Harry to grapple with his past trauma. Indeed, though Goblet of Fire is widely identified as the “transition point” into the darker themes of the series’ latter half, Prisoner of Azkaban is definitely where those themes begin to take root.

4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

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Harry Potter Book Pdf