I believe his point was that you don’t have to be British to have heard about it: it appears in a lot of American popular media, as well.
Well, yes, obviously. I was just saying that that bit of history had already worked its way into American culture.
OK, so let’s look at the case of a reader who’s never heard of the Philosopher’s Stone before. At a first glance at the title of the book, this new reader might indeed think it’s the pet rock of some thinker, but from the very first mention in the book, it’s clear that it’s something notable, magical, and desirable, which is really all you need to know about it. In fact, one would certainly hope that that’s all that you need to know about it, since that’s all anyone who read the American edition did know about it until well into the story. In short, for anyone who didn’t know of the alchemical Philosopher’s Stone, the story would work exactly as well with either name. For those readers, however (however few they might be) who were familiar with the alchemical Philosopher’s Stone, seeing that term in the book would lend it extra levels of depth. So why not?
So, in order to avoid confusing potential readers with a somewhat obscure historical reference, they concocted a completely new, unheard-of historical reference.
Makes perfect sense to me. . . .
My first encounter with the term “Philosopher’s stone” was many years ago in a Mickey Mouse comic. So the well read Americans were familiar with it.
Are you sure it wasn’t Uncle Scrooge? Sounds more like his kind of thing.
Yes, it was Uncle Scrooge:
Of course! We intellectuals always preferred Uncle Scrooge.
We agree on this, but the argument ran that they shouldn’t have avoided the term “Philosopher’s Stone”, since Americans are actually familiar with it…and I don’t think that for the most part we are, especially among the teens and tweens who make up the original target demographic. Also, as a “branding” move, it actually makes sense - I’ll bet ‘Sorcerer’ is more sexy to youngsters than ‘Philosopher’.
I doubt Americans are any less likely to recognize the term “Philosopher’s Stone” than the British or Canadians, and the book did well enough in the countries where it was titled Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The title change for the US edition strikes me as being a case of fixing something that ain’t broke.
Right. As I just said in my response to your other post, I agree with you that Sorcerer’s Stone wouldn’t be any more familiar. But they were marketing something to what they probably assumed was a narrow demographic, so it may well have been reasonable to replace a dry, fusty philosopher with an exciting sorcerer.
Sorry, but before Harry Potter I had never heard of a Philosopher’s Stone, though of course I was familiar with the concept of alchemy. (Why do you think such a thing would be taught in a science class though?) I seriously doubt most (or even a notable percentage) of the targeted audience for the books in America had ever heard that term before.
I had no idea that was what “people” thought; I took it for granted that everybody here knew it was a book first and that there was no need for me to point out that I too knows that. - I watched the movie with my kids, read the IMDB, got confused about the title change and threw out the question. So, no need to be depressed. We’re all cool. - Otherwise, thanks for all the replies, it has been a interesting thread.
The objective of the publishers was to sell lots of books. They succeeded in that beyond their wildest dreams. Would they have sold as many copies under a different title? No one can possibly know.
I’ll argue that the first three HP movies are better movies than the first three books are books. Not saying the movies are better than the books per se. And the movies go way downhill after the third.
As for the OP, the point isn’t “Philosopher’s Stone” vs. “Sorcerer’s Stone,” it’s “Philosopher” vs. “Sorcerer.” The latter actually implies magic and adventure…the former either implies boring ol’ philosophy (if you DON’T know what the term refers to) or, well, alchemy. Neither of which is an easy sell, and neither really relates to the book much. I wish they’d kept the original title, but I can understand why they didn’t.
But if you grant the notion that most American children had never heard of a Philosopher’s Stone, nor (obviously) a Sorcerer’s Stone, the question is – are American children more interested in Philosophers or Sorcerers? It was all about marketing.
It may have been a Uncle Scrooge comic, but it was not the version described in the Wiki article. In the version I read, it was Mickey (and I think Goofy) that found the stone and had it stolen from them. The thief soon found out that when he held onto the stone for too long, his nose turned to gold. There was no Donald Duck and his nephews in the story.
This was one of the few Disney comics I ever owned and it was about 1961-1962 era. This is where I first heard of a Philosophers Stone.
Funny how I remember this after 45 years and don’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday.
I’m reasonably well educated, and I had never heard of the Philosopher’s Stone before I learned about the title change for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Never played D&D, never cared much for Disney cartoons. Maybe that’s my downfall: if Bugs Bunny had ever run across the thing, I suspect I’d know about it.
Do you agree with me that “Philosopher’s Stone” is no more obscure in the US than it is in the UK or Canada? Because that’s what I’m saying in the post above, which was in response to your claim that for the most part Americans would not know the term. The book was already a success in the UK, far exceeding initial expectations, before an American edition was released more than a year later. So why change the title? “Philosopher’s Stone” apparently didn’t sound too weird or boring for British children to bother with. The Canadian publisher also considered the original title appropriate for English-speaking Canadian kids, and as far as I can tell most (although admittedly not all) foreign-language editions of the book use either the local word for “Philosopher” in translating the term “Philosopher’s Stone” or go with whatever their language’s traditional name for the legendary alchemical substance was.
As an American, what I find annoying about this is that the US publisher apparently believed that American children (and their parents?) are either stupider or more easily intimidated by “big words” than their British counterparts. Had this book never been printed before then I could better understand the American publishers being uncertain about the title, but they were dealing with a book that had already been successfully marketed to children as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Or, if they absolutely had to change the name, why not something like Harry Potter and the Alchemist’s Stone? Everyone knows that alchemy is magical and non-boring, and it would have given even folks not familiar with the Philosopher’s Stone some idea of what it is.
I don’t actually know. My wife grew up in Europe and contends (we’ve been talking about this) that they learn more about medieval times than we do here in the US, where our history is more aimed at hearing about how Columbus discovered America and the Alamo was a brave stand by freedom fighters.
Okay, that last bit was slightly tongue-in-cheek, but she does make the point that she learned boatloads more geography growing up than kids do here in the US…so maybe they also learn more about alchemy? What I can say is that Harry Potter aside, pretty much no school kids here spent more than 2 minutes on alchemy (unless it can be used to buttress the superiority of America), and pretty much none of them heard of the philosopher’s stone. Maybe in AP European History in high school a few kids heard it, but otherwise they had to pick it up on their own. As for Canada…wait, they have schools?
Couldn’t the marketers just have thought that a sorcerer was cooler than a philosopher and sexed it up? I’m not getting the taking offense part.