The Untold Story of Harry Potter in Canada

Introduction

There is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the first publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in Canada. Mapping this history has been made more difficult because the archives of the Canadian publisher Raincoast were, unfortunately, lost. Nevertheless, after locating and interviewing several former members of the publisher’s staff who were closely involved in introducing Harry Potter to Canada, it has been possible to assemble a clear picture of this history.

How it started: a Vancouver bookshop and a small notice

Much of the credit for bringing Harry Potter to Canada goes to Kelly McKinnon and Phyllis Simon, the passionate owners of the beloved children’s bookstore Kidsbooks in Vancouver. Their curiosity was aroused in the autumn of 1998 by a short article in Publishers Weekly about the American edition. They ordered a copy and, after reading it, were immediately so enthusiastic that they decided to stock the book. To do this they contacted Raincoast Publishers, which held the Canadian distribution rights for Bloomsbury — the British publisher.

To their surprise, Raincoast had never heard of Harry Potter and showed little interest in keeping the book in stock. Both owners of Kidsbooks felt this was a missed opportunity and asked Raincoast to order 200 copies of the British paperback from Bloomsbury. Bloomsbury agreed, but on the condition that Kidsbooks cover the substantial shipping costs.

Phyllis Simon: “The high shipping costs pushed the paperback price up to $12.95, while most paperbacks were around $5.95 — a real gamble! But Kelly said: okay, let's take 200 copies and try to generate interest as Christmas gifts. And here hand-selling really made the difference: the staff were completely behind the book and those 200 copies sold out within a few weeks! So we ordered another 200, just for ourselves.”

Interest grows and rights are investigated

This sales success did not go unnoticed by Raincoast. The decisive owners of Kidsbooks had piqued the interest of Mark Stanton and Allan MacDougall, the owners of Raincoast, who decided to investigate the Canadian publishing rights for the book. Because these rights were usually acquired by the large American publisher Scholastic, the small Canadian publisher had little hope of success.

However, Scholastic had apparently neglected to secure the Canadian rights, which opened the door for Raincoast to take further steps. For this, cooperation with Bloomsbury was sought. Bloomsbury negotiated the Canadian rights for the first book, and for the still-available publishing rights of the recently released second book and the forthcoming third, Raincoast and Bloomsbury decided to submit a joint bid. Scholastic had by then woken up and had also set its sights on the Canadian rights, but thanks to the pooling of resources between the English and Canadian publishers they managed to make a bid that outbid the American publisher.

"Bloomsbury asked us if we want to do a joint venture of books two and three of the series. They had an option on the Canadian rights for those but were going to have to put together an offer with a substantial advance to hold off interest from Scholastic. We had a publishing board meeting, which included sales and marketing folk, art director, publicists, as well as Mark, Alan and myself. We decided at the meeting to take the plunge. It was a significant cash investment."  Kevin Williams, Associate publisher Raincoast Books and VP International Sales 

Local printing and a curious error

With the rights secured, Harry Potter could be launched in Canada. A local printing of Philosopher’s Stone was needed, because importing British editions was far too expensive — the shipping costs had already forced Kidsbooks to charge an unusually high retail price.

It was agreed that Raincoast would arrange this local printing for Bloomsbury, and the Canadian publisher engaged the printer Webcom in Toronto for the job. In early January 1999 Bloomsbury sent a digital print file of the first book to Raincoast's production department — which contained an unusual error. On page 53, in the list of required school supplies, “1 Wand” appeared twice. The error had slipped into the first UK printing in mid-1997. It had been corrected from the second printing onward, but resurfaced after a layout revision in January 1999. The circumstances of this episode are described in my article "The Double 1 Wand Error."

The fact that Raincoast had to handle not only distribution but also production of the book caused quite a bit of confusion within the publisher's production department.

Ruth Linka: "There was confusion over whether this edition should be considered the first Canadian edition. Although the cover and binding bore the Raincoast imprint, the title page of the book block listed Bloomsbury, and Raincoast was barely [sic]  mentioned on the copyright page."

The British digital print file was adopted by Raincoast almost intact. Only the copyright page received two small changes:

• the line naming the book's printer was updated to the Canadian printer Webcom, and
• in order to create some distinction from the English first printing, it was decided to remove the numeral “1” from the number line on the copyright page.

This remarkable choice would later lead to great confusion among collectors. Normally, a first printing of a book is indicated by a number line running from 10–1. A number line that runs from 10–2 implies a second printing, and so on. By removing the “1” the impression was given that this was a second printing and that a first printing therefore existed. Because this decision was never communicated by the publisher, many collectors have since been searching for a non-existent Canadian first printing with a 10–1 number line.

The UK print file sent to Raincoast in January 1999 would cause further confusion. At that time the second book, Chamber of Secrets, had been out in the UK for six months. The file used included a notice of this title on the verso of the Canadian edition's title page — "Also available: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." Incorrectly, the Canadian first printing of Philosopher’s Stone therefore suggested that Chamber of Secrets had already been published by Raincoast, when in fact the second book would not appear in Canada for several months.

The first Canadian Harry Potter hardbacks

The copies that Webcom in Toronto delivered at the end of January 1999 were hardbacks, fitted with a plain blue paper binding with silver lettering on the spine. The books received the familiar illustrated dust jacket of their English counterpart, with the only external sign of Canadian origin being a small Raincoast logo at the foot of the spine on both the binding and jacket.

Raincoast had started cautiously: Ruth Linka, production manager at Raincoast, recalled a very small print run — probably only 500 copies. Sales still had to pick up, Ruth wrote:

"It could have been 500 copies […] I know sales for Philosopher weren’t that high at the start. The big sales numbers didn’t really start until we had published Chamber of Secrets."

Despite the modest sales of Philosopher’s Stone, Raincoast decided on a larger print run for the second book. The high cost of the acquired publishing rights needed to be recouped quickly. Printer Webcom was commissioned to deliver 3,000 copies, which were on bookshelves in early May 1999. Again a blue binding with illustrated dust jacket was chosen, this time as a recognisably Raincoast edition with its own ISBN and copyright page.

 

It would be several more months before the worldwide Harry Potter phenomenon took off and sales at Raincoast became unstoppable, after which paperback editions of both volumes appeared. As with the hardback of Philosopher’s Stone, the paperback followed the same decision to omit the numeral "1" from the number line on the copyright page. The striking blue bindings were abandoned, leaving them limited to the first printings of Philosopher’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets.

A rare treasure for collectors

After more than 26 years, there is finally clarity about how Harry Potter first came to Canada — a story that reveals not only that the very first Canadian edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is unique in its design, but also that its extremely limited print run of only 500 copies places it on par, in terms of rarity, with the very first English hardback. For collectors, long in search of the so-called “Holy Grail” of Potter publishing, Canada’s debut edition now claims a well-deserved place among the most coveted treasures in the wizarding world.