The first Harry Potter book came out in 1997 in the UK. It came to America in 1998 but it wasn't the phenomenon it would be yet in 1998, at least not in America.

By 1999 though I remember going to Barnes and Nobles and seeing it everywhere. It was 'popular' by 1999, at least in my eyes.

However, it wasn't the Beatle-esque phenomenon it was/is until 2000. I remember about a month before the book (Goblet of Fire, the fourth book) came out it was explosive, like lining up for Star Wars or something.

It was a slow build up (or fast, depending on your point of view) until 2000 when everyone knew who/what Harry Potter was!

But 1999 was when it was already on a lot of people's radar.

JK Rowling actually thought of Harry Potter way back in 1990 (when Thatcher was still in office!) but yeah I'd say by 2000 and definitely by when the movies came out it was "everywhere". The first book was written between 1990 and 1995 which explains why the universe it takes place in is set in the '90s. I'm pretty sure I first heard about it in 1999 and even though the book came out in '97 IIRC it wasn't really that popular until a couple years later.

1998 or 1999 was when I first heard of Harry Potter when our teacher read it to us in class. I was 21 when I read the last book. I guess you could say I grew up with it. There was a waiting list for the library books. The first movie came out in the early 2000's. It's probably safe to say HP was a bigger craze than Twilight.

JK Rowling actually thought of Harry Potter way back in 1990 (when Thatcher was still in office!) but yeah I'd say by 2000 and definitely by when the movies came out it was "everywhere". The first book was written between 1990 and 1995 which explains why the universe it takes place in is set in the '90s. I'm pretty sure I first heard about it in 1999 and even though the book came out in '97 IIRC it wasn't really that popular until a couple years later.


Yeah, I really started paying attention to Harry Potter in December 1999, when a girl in my fifth grade class was reading Sorcerer's Stone. Before that, for me Harry Potter was an afterthought. And I didn't even like Harry Potter yet in 1999.

1998 or 1999 was when I first heard of Harry Potter when our teacher read it to us in class. I was 21 when I read the last book. I guess you could say I grew up with it. There was a waiting list for the library books. The first movie came out in the early 2000's. It's probably safe to say HP was a bigger craze than Twilight.


I think I already heard of Harry Potter in 1998, like around November/December but by December 1999 I finally started noticing it was getting attention by a lot of people. I'm sure it was getting attention before December 1999 before I paid attention to it.

Yes I read the first book then, when I was seven. I bought every book the week it came out; this took about ten years; it was quite a part of my childhood :)

I became aware of Harry Potter in the year 2000, when I was in the second/third grades. I distinctly remember checking out Goblet of Fire from my school library. I didn't finish it, and when I lined up to turn it in a week later, my teacher was like, "Yeah, right, Mathew! Like you read that whole book in a week!"  ::)