I’ve been taking notes on Beedle the Bard. I’m amazed at how much new information Rowling manages to cram into a very short book. I’ll be working on the Reader’s Guide as I get time. I’ve uploaded the notes for the introduction for you all to read and discuss. I’ve also added notes about the commentary for the first story.
I just finished reading through my copy of Tales of Beedle the Bard, and I am absolutely delighted with it. It’s so wonderful to read J.K. Rowling’s storytelling and tongue-in-cheek humour again. The stories are great, but I was particularly happy with the commentary. She gives us even more tantalising tidbits of information about her world, and manages to explain a few fan conundrums along the way, such as the definition of ‘warlock’ and the age of Beatrix Bloxum. This book is a treasure!
Well, I can finally tell you all what’s been keeping me so busy for the last six months. Today we announced the publication of The Lexicon: An Unauthorized Guide to Harry Potter Fiction and Related Materials, which will come out on the 12th of January. This book has been written to carefully follow the guidelines laid out in the Judge’s decision concerning the original Lexicon manuscript. Last night, Christopher Little Agency released the following statement:
“We are delighted that this matter is finally and favourably resolved and that J.K. Rowling’s rights — and indeed the rights of all authors of creative works — have been protected. We are also pleased to hear that rather than continue to litigate, RDR have themselves decided to publish a different book prepared with reference to Judge Patterson’s decision.”
I share their pleasure at this positive development, and I’m very happy with the new book. I hope that fans everywhere will find it to be a worthwhile and engaging companion book to the Harry Potter series.
You can order the book here.
I am delighted to let you all know that my book In Search of Harry Potter is on the shelves. The book was published by Methuen Publishing in London and is now available in shops in Britain. From what I’ve been told, it should be in the stores in the US in a few weeks. In the meantime, it’s available from Amazon.
I’ve had quite a few questions about the book, so I’ve put together a page about it which I hope will be helpful. If you have further questions, feel free to send me an email.
The book is hardcover and illustrated with my photographs throughout. The material in the book is best described as a first-person travel memoir. I didn’t include information directly from the Lexicon website with the exception of a couple of essays by Ravenclaw Rambler for which he gave me permission. The cover and the maps were created by Camilla Engelby, a good friend and fellow Harry Potter fan.
Thanks to Claire M. Jordan, the author of an excellent essay in our collection, I have been able to update the page listing differences between the UK and US editions of Deathly Hallows. Most of the differences are simply substitutions of US terms for British ones (e.g. ‘crib’ for ‘cot’). There are a few interesting changes in wording as well.
Recently, some of my friends have been receiving unwanted and annoying phone calls from members of the press, trying to get in contact with me. This is definitely not appreciated. One friend has had to change her phone number several times to avoid these kinds of calls, but is still receiving them.
To avoid this kind of harassment, I’ve created an email account which can be used to contact me directly. The address is
steve.lexicon@googlemail.com. Please use this method of reaching me and do not call my friends and family, as they will not be willing to talk to you and will not put you in touch with me.
Steve
There’s been a decided lack of new posts here, I know. Sorry about that. I spent most of the week in London at the publisher working on the new book, In Search of Harry Potter, which is due out October the 9th, and so I’ve been commuting back and forth, which means hours on the train. So there have been only a few behind-the-scenes updates and edits.
One baffling problem I’ve been trying to sort out is the fact that our /icons folder wasn’t working. I finally determined that it’s because the server has its own folder with that name and automatically hijacks any URL. So this evening I need change that folder name and then track down and fix any links that will then point to the wrong place. Thank goodness for Dreamweaver. Even so, that’s going to take some time.
One thing that a working /icons folder means is that we will be able to start working on the icon database (the one that we’re missing all the current data for) and get the icons to work properly. If they’re set up right, clicking on an icon in the timeline or the Portkey brings up an icon search page with relevant links and saved searches for that icon through the entire database. This will expand over time as we begin databasing more areas of the Lexicon until clicking an icon will give you a well-organised screen of everything in the entire site which has that icon attached. So if you click on the Potions icon, you’ll see a list of people, places, timeline events, canon snippets, creatures, essays, and so on that are related to that topic, along with a concise definition and even offsite links.
Should be very cool … but I need to get the folder to work first, and the start re-entering all that data ….
I’ve fixed the Google search for the site, so have at it. Unfortunately, the Remembrall isn’t working right now because it’s fixed on the wrong domain. I’m sure we’ll be able to sort it out, but for now just use the Google search.
Great news! Thanks to Roonwit, we have our timelines back. Well, almost back. The back-up file was dated March 2007, so some material was lost. Also, since the domain names have changed, the links in the timeline entries themselves don’t work at the moment. However, we’re hoping to get things cleaned up, working properly, and updated soon.
But any way you look at it, this is fantastic news, and I am so grateful to Roonwit for his help.
As you might have noticed, the Lexicon has had some technical problems over the past week or so. We’re in the process of updating and upgrading everything. Part of the process involved transferring some domains around, and along the way an error resulted in the www.hp-lexicon.info domain losing its DNS settings. We can’t reset them until the transfer is complete. So in the meantime, you can access the site at www.hplex.org and www.hplex.info. I’m so sorry for the inconvenience.
I’ve just switched the What’s New blog back on. I’ll be updating it as things come back on line properly. Just about everything is working the way it’s supposed to, with the exception of the Timelines. We’re working on that and hopefully will have restored very soon.
In the meantime, welcome back!
Last night I finished entering Quidditch Through the Ages into the Portkey database. That’s the last of the books to be entered, so now the Portkey covers all seven novels and the two Schoolbooks, as well as all the Famous Wizard cards. Surprisingly, there was actually an earthquake just a few moments after I entered the last part of the book into the Portkey. Kind of made it feel like a momentous occasion.
The Daily Prophet newsletters are next. The first issue is partly entered already. I think I’ll do some non-Portkey work on the Reader’s Guides first, though. There are a lot of chapters that have no commentary yet. Just remember, Reader’s Guide commentary automatically appears in the Portkey entries for the passages from the books, just another example of how the Portkey pulls everything in the Lexicon together in one easy-to-use research tool.
With yesterday’s emphasis on Quidditch, I’ve been muddling about with the Portkey, adding information to the Timeline, and testing out how it all fits together. When I add a date to the Timeline, for example, it’s supposed to appear on the Timelines tab of the associated Portkey entries.
I tend to work in outline mode, by which I mean that I go to the “Book Outlines” menu and choose the book I want to work with. When I click on a book (or other canon source), the Portkey shows me the full organized list of events from that source. So while I’m adding things to Quidditch Through the Ages, I keep the outline of that book on my Portkey screen.
As part of that process, I was adding information about Gwenog Jones, the brilliant but dangerous captain of the Harpies. I went through the various places she appears and tagged her on those entries, some of which hadn’t been tagged or iconned yet. Then I did a search of the Portkey for ‘gwenog jones’. I thought the thing had quit on me. It took over sixty seconds to do the search, and there was nothing on the screen to indicate that the search was still going on. Try it and you’ll see what I mean.
Obviously, this needs some tweaking. The search should be faster, although as the amount of information increases, that may be a problem. But some sort of “Search in progress…” notice on the screen would also be very helpful. I don’t currently have a programmer to work on those things, but when I find one, I’ll see what can be done.
In the meantime, if you do a search of the Portkey for a term (as opposed to an advanced search, which goes much faster), please be patient. The Portkey might look like it’s choked, but it’s just busy searching through a LOT of information. And if you know of a good programmer who might want to help with this, let me know.
Steve