Remember that when Hagrid arrived, he was surprised that Harry knew nothing of his background or his abilities. Perhaps his letter was intended for someone expected to be familiar with Hogwarts, and the Muggle-born children get a different treatment?
Well, this was back when the first messages about the Chamber of Secrets were going up on the walls, so I think the idea is that everyone was checking out Hogwarts, a History so they could find out what the Chamber of Secrets was. Most of them probably didn’t read any farther, or they’d know that you can’t apparate or disapparate on school grounds.
Oy.
What’s the diplomatic way of putting this?
The most informative answers I’ve been seeing here seem to have been provided by people who are working from their knowledge of the books. The movies leave out plenty of detail.
Yer right there re: the movie leaving out detail, but on rechecking the passage, the book does too.
Would the UK mail service deliver a letter, especially a thick and heavy one (this being the first of the slew of letters) without a stamp? Can one assume the owl sneaked in after the postman left, since there’s a short bit of time passing with the family arguing over who is going to get the mail (pgs. 33 & 34 in the US trade paperback edition, btw)?
(And do people in England generally have a doormat inside the house?)
My apologies for basing my answer on the movie (I’m usually pretty good on following the gistof a lit vs. film squabble), but realizing now they added the owls to speed up the not only the owl post introduction (Harry doesn’t actually meet the owl post until the next morning when he and Hagrid are ready to leave the island), but to get the cute owls in there asap for strigiphiles like me.
screech “you can never have too many owls in a movie” -owl